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March 31, 2005
Sega!
I've been at a conference today so I haven't had a chance to come up for any new material for video blogging week 2005. So rather than not contribute any video today, I figured I'd find some footage I hadn't posted to my blog previously.
So, without further ado, here's a clip I recorded in Mauritius last July of a dance troupe performing the sega, a traditional creole dance that blends elements of dance from Mozambique and India. Enjoy.... -ac
click to play
Posted by acarvin at 5:13 PM | TrackBack
TakingITGlobal Documentary Now Online
Good news: the team at TakingITGlobal has managed to put its documentary, Local Voices, Global Visions, on the Internet, hosted at ourmedia.org. Click on the previous link; when you get to this page, click the play button on the video, and it will begin to download. It is a very large file - around 100 megs - but worth every byte. (You may recall I reviewed the video last week.)
Please set aside 45 minutes at some point to watch the video. It demonstrates the power of ICTs in the hands of youth, both in terms of the projects profiled and the making of the documentary itself.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:56 PM | TrackBack
March 29, 2005
SMS Text Messaging in the Gulf
Today's Wasthington Post includes a story by Steve Coll entitled In the Gulf, Dissidence Goes Digital. The article takes a look at the rise of SMS text messaging in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and how texting is allowing people to spread their political opinions. Here's a snippet:
In this roiling political spring of protest and debate about democracy in repressive Arab countries, cell phone text messaging has become a powerful underground channel of free and often impolite speech, especially in the oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies, where mobile phones are common but candid public talk about politics is not.Demonstrators use text messaging to mobilize followers, dodge authorities and swarm quickly to protest sites. Candidates organizing for the region's limited elections use text services to call supporters to the polls or slyly circulate candidate slates in countries that supposedly ban political groupings. And through it all, anonymous activists blast their adversaries with thousands of jokes, insults and political limericks.
I'm planning to head to Bahrain and Dubai in May; perhaps I'll be able to meet up with some local SMS gurus during my stay.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Thanksgiving in March
This morning, Susanne and I heard some squawking noises outside our apartment in Brookline, two blocks' west of Boston. At first I assumed it was Canadian geese, since we've been getting a lot of them flying through our neighborhood this week, but then I heard Susanne say, "Andy, come over hear quickly."
I walked into our office, and there outside our window was a family of four wild turkeys, absolutely enormous birds, strutting across our neighbor's lawn. Over the next few minutes they hopped across his fence, walked across the street (to get to the other side, of course), then hung out in the lawn of the Episcopal church until a Brookline animal control officer shooed them off, chasing them onto the church's roof and to the other side, where they could hopefully wander in peace along the forested Riverway.
I managed to catch a few seconds of video from my office window; I had to blow it up by 75% because they were far away at that point, so please excuse the graininess of the clip.
click to play
Posted by acarvin at 9:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 28, 2005
Sri Lanka Tsunami Alert Called Off
The following note comes from Angelo Embuldeniya in Sri Lanka... -andy
Sri Lanka's meteorological department has withdrawn its tsunami warning and said it was safe for coastal residents to return to their homes despite a submarine earthquake near Indonesia.Met chief P. M. Jayatilake said they decided to withdraw the tsunami warning as there were no reports of unusual wave activity anywhere in the neighbouring countries within the Indian Ocean. - this statement was released about 45 mins ago.
Posted by acarvin at 6:13 PM | TrackBack
USGS Raises Estimate to 8.7; Possible Tsunami Towards Mauritius, Rodrigues, Sri Lanka
CNN is reporting that the US Geological Survey has raised its estimate of the earthquake's strength to 8.7 on the Richter Scale. The article goes on to say that a small tsunami may be on its way towards Mauritius. "We think this event probably ruptured to the south, with the beam of energy probably propagated to the south toward Mauritius and the Rodrigues," said Robert Cessaro of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Additionally, the Sri Lankan government warns that a tsunami may reach the country's coastline around 3am local time Tuesday, approximately one hour from now... - andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:08 PM | TrackBack
Peter Tan Blogs the Quake in Real-Time
Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi credits Peter Tan as the first blogger to capture the earthquake. "At the time of the quake, TV Smith, Daniel Tang and I were shooting the breeze at a coffee joint in TTDI," Jeff writes. "We went helter-skelter for our blogs when MackZul broke the news to us." But Peter beat them to their keyboards; his one-line post said, "My apartment is shaking now." -and
Posted by acarvin at 2:42 PM | TrackBack
Map of Tsunami Propogation Model
The DMA Earthquake Alert Tool has a variety of data related to today's earthquake. The site includes this model for the propogation of a tsunami, if it does indeed occur. - andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:54 PM | TrackBack
CNN Needs to Fix Its Priorities
I've spent the last 30 minutes alerting as many people through as many channels as possible about the earthquake and possible tsunami off the coast of Indonesia today. I then turned on CNN to see what I could learn from them. They're still covering the Terri Schiavo case. Shame on them!
Posted by acarvin at 12:48 PM | TrackBack
Malaysian Bloggers Capture Earthquake, Warn of Tsunami
Malaysian bloggers are mobilizing to cover today's earthquake. Zack Zulkifli was perhaps the first to write about it; Jeff Ooi is also actively involved. You can follow more of this on the Global Voices blog. I have also aggregated news on my tsunami-info.org website. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:45 PM | TrackBack
NEWS: Another Indonesian Earthquake; Tsunami Possible
CNN is reporting that another earthquake has occured along the same fault line off Indonesia that caused last December's tsunami. The earthquake registered over 8.2 on the Richter scale, apparently. Please alert colleagues and friends in South/Southeast Asia as soon as possible.
Posted by acarvin at 12:12 PM | TrackBack
Mike's Pastry, Take Two
A few people have had problems opening up the .avi video file I used to record crowds at Mike's Pastry in Boston's North End this weekend, so I'm posting it again as a compressed Quicktime file. This should mean it'll download a lot faster as well. -andy
click to play
Posted by acarvin at 9:32 AM | TrackBack
Easter Baskets Video
A four-minute video of everything you wanted to know about what Andy and Susanne got in their Easter baskets yesterday. Now we just need to make a Purim video retelling the Book of Esther with hand puppets or something... -andy
click to play
Posted by acarvin at 9:13 AM | TrackBack
March 27, 2005
Mike's Pastry
Susanne and I went to dinner at L'Osteria in Boston's North End last night. Since it was the night before Easter, the North End was overflowing with the local Italian community (not to mention a lot of Boston yuppies) scrambling to pick up last-minute treats for the holiday. To wit: here's a short video of the chaos at Mike's Pastry, which would be open til the wee hours of the morning satisfying customer's needs for lamb cakes and other Easter treats. Consider this a small, modest contribution to video blogging week 2005, which kicks off today. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 26, 2005
Digital Divide Network: 6,600 Members in 115 Countries
For a long time, whenever people ask me where DDN members were from, I've usually said we have members from around 80 different countries, based on counting different domain names to the email list. But thanks to the new DDN website, I'm able to sort the list of website members according to country. I tried it this afternoon and I was astounded to find out that we now have more than 6,600 members from 115 countries! So apparently I had been low-balling my estimate by at least 30 countries.
If you're interested in seeing who's from a particular country, simply go to www.digitaldivide.net and type in the name of a country in the search engine, in the top right corner of the homepage. The site will then generate a list of all DDN content related to that country, including members. Interestingly, while US members still comprise the largest group by far, they are no longer in the majority. There are approximately 2,880 members from the US, equaling 43.5% of the entire membership. That means 56.6% of members are outside the US.
Here are the countries represented by DDN members:
Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Congo/Brazzaville, Congo/Dem Rep, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, St. Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Posted by acarvin at 5:11 PM | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
Madison Square Podcast
I just finished having brunch with Paul Mondesire and Ellen Lenihan from WNET Channel 13, during which time I posted this podcast to demonstrate audio blogging from a mobile phone. Now I'm on the Amtrak back to Boston; should be home by 4pm.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:00 PM | TrackBack
Podcast: Andy's WSIS Speech at the National Model UN Conference
I've just posted the audio of my keynote speech at the National Model United Nations Conference's WSIS simulation. Approximately 500 college students from several dozen countries participated. As I wrote in my previous post, they were an extraordinary group of young people. I really had a lot of fun talking with them.
Here's the MP3 of the speech:
http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/nmun.mp3
There's also an open-source OGG format version of the recording: simply change the end of the URL from .mp3 to .ogg if you prefer that format. (I can't hyperlink to it or podcast users will have both versions automatically downloaded onto their computers.)
Meanwhile, here's a copy of my Powerpoint from the presentation. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:54 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 24, 2005
Podcasting from the National Model UN Conference
I've just posted a five-minute podcast from my mobile phone here at the National Model United Nations conference here in New York City. There are 3000 delegates from around the world holding a mock United Nations meeting here, including 500 of them involved in a mock World Summit on the Information Society. It's quite disturbing, in an amazing way, how it reminds me of the real thing. I got to address the delegation this afternoon, including a 40-minute speech and then 25 - count 'em - 25 questions from the audience. They were most well informed bunch I've met so far in all the meetings I've had about WSIS, and they asked tough, diverse questions ranging from the fight over free and open source vs. proprietary software, the connection between bridging the digital divide and reforming the World Bank and IMF, the effects of media cross-ownership on content diversity... I could go on and on but I'm too exhausted. :-)
I also ospent a lot of time talking about ways they can get involved in the WSIS youth caucus, other working groups, and using Meetups and blogging as tools to promote WSIS. (When I asked the group how many of them blogged, somewhere between 75 and 100 students raised their hands.) Even if only one percent of those in attendence get involved in WSIS because of this experience, I'll be absolutely thrilled. But from the conversations I had afterwards, I have a feeling a lot more than that will get involved.
I recorded my speech as well; I'll post that online a little later if I can get the bandwidth here to cooperate.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 6:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Movie Review: Local Voices, Global Visions
I'm riding on an Amtrak Acela train through snowbound Connecticut right now on my way to the National Model United Nations conference, where I'll be addressing a group of 500 youth delegates who are conducting a mock World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). To psych myself up for the talk, I brought along a DVD of TakingITGlobal's new documentary, Local Voices, Global Visions. I got the DVD in the mail just before I left for India a few weeks ago, so this was my first chance to see it.
If I could snap my fingers and burn 100,000 DVDs in a flash, I would send a copy of this documentary to every K-12 school in the United States, then snap my fingers some more until they turned raw so schools and youth groups around the world could have a copy as well. This 45-minute documentary, produced entirely by young people, does an astounding job at capturing what's at stake with WSIS, which will have its second summit this November in Tunisia. And it demonstrates the vital role that youth can play in policymaking, whether related to the digital divide or other important policy goals.
The video profiles groups of young people from around the world -- Sierra Leone, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, Canada and Tunisia -- as they organize national youth campaigns to mobilize young people into the WSIS policymaking process. The documentary is broken down into segments, each one profiling youth activists and their work in their home country. We get to know Andrew Benson Greene and his colleagues in IEARN Sierra Leone as they teach their peers to use digital technology and create music as part of their country's post-civil war healing process. In Nigeria, 'Gbenga Sesan leads a national campaign to educate youth about the importance of participating in digital divide policymaking. In India, we meet a young woman who has opened up her home to a local orphanage so she can teach children computer skills. And in Tunisia, we learn about Marouen Mrahi, Rim Nour and their fellow engineering students as they galvanize Tunisian youth to participate in the next WSIS summit, which will take place in their home town of Tunis.
The documentary reaches its climax in Geneva during the first WSIS summit in December 2003. The young people profiled in the video, along with hundreds of other youth activists, organize seminars, participate in summit plenaries, and demonstrate ICT projects to government ministers. The summit is the culmination of more than a year of activities around the world, but it's quite clear that these young people have no plans of wrapping up their activities once they go home. For one thing, they've got another WSIS summit ahead of them in November 2005, but beyond that, you get to see how these young people are laying the groundwork for long-term initiatives to bridge the digital divide in their home countries.
I've met many of the young people profiled in this documentary in person, so it's great getting to see them in the spotlight, but it's not just because I know them personally. (Full disclosure -- TakingITGlobal is a strategic partner of the Digital Divide Network, and I donated some photos from the Geneva summit for the documentary.) Watching them speak, organize local campaigns and take action, I couldn't help but think these young people are truly the leaders of tomorrow. In all seriousness, I wouldn't be at all shocked if one of them - or even more - end up becoming heads of state in their home countries. They have charisma, leadership skills, articulateness and a profound grasp of policy issues. Not only does this video document the role of youth in WSIS, it documents national leaders in the making.
Beyond the amazing people profiled in the video, there's the high production quality as well. TakingITGlobal produced it on a Mac laptop running Final Cut Pro editing software (I note with some pride, as these tools are my own documentary weapons of choice), with all the work done by young people. Twenty-one-year-old Jarra McGrath traveled the world shooting the film, with TakingITGlobal's Nick Moraitis collaborating as co-editor and as narrator. Even the music is produced by youth, most notably the songs recorded by IEARN Sierra Leone. The documentary is a perfect example of how young people can be producers of high-quality content, from video editing to interstitial animations to the Hollywood-quality DVD jewel box packaging.
I do have one complaint, though; the documentary is not available online. If you go to the video's website, there's a short clip, but otherwise only contact information for purchasing copies. That's a real shame -- it would be an enormous public service to make the documentary, or at least more clips, available for noncommercial and educational use.
Otherwise, I can't say enough about this documentary. I am so inspired. It's reinforcing the creative buzz I felt during my recent trip to India, where I produced two documentary shorts on my laptop. My mind is racing with ideas, locations, editing tricks: I'm just dying to get out in the field and make more documentaries now.
But my short-term goal may have backfired. I intended to watch this video to get psyched for my speech later today, yet I may have to scrap my entire presentation for the conference. I'm almost - almost - tempted to shut up and let this documentary do the talking. With Local Voices, Global Visions, the youth of TakingITGlobal articulate the importance of WSIS better than I ever could with just an old-fashioned speech.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:59 PM | TrackBack
Last Night's Boston Digital Divide Meetup
Last night at the Lenox Hotel City Bar in Boston, a group of 14 of us gathered for the official local meetup of the Digital Divide Network. DDN members traveled from as far away as Maine to participate in the informal gathering, which lasted just over 90 minutes.
After everyone introduced themselves, I gave a brief history of DDN, and talked about the potential goals of DDN meetups. I noted that different communities will have varying perspectives and priorities when it comes to bridging the digital divide, so there wouldn't be a specific formula or set of goals that would apply to all local meetups. Having said that, I also said that Boston's DDN meetup group could serve as a model for other groups to be formed around the country, so we should document what we're doing, what works and what doesn't.
The group then discussed what it would like to get out of the experience. Some participants expressed interest in being able to profile local initiatives; others hoped to discuss national and international issues, such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Rebecca MacKinnon talked about issues such as Internet governance, free expression and online civic journalism, while I discussed using DDN meetups so local communities could host their own digital divide forums during the WSIS summit next November. There also seemed to be a strong overarching interest in building local social networks of individuals and groups working to bridge the digital divide.
I suggested that we try to create a meeting format in which we would begin each meeting with introductions and announcements, then a brief discussion about what's going on online with DDN. This would be followed by a time slot in which a participant would be invited to present a project or facilitate a discussion on a topic of interest. Meetings would close with final thoughts, action items and any next steps for planning future meetups. Some participants also suggested that in between monthly gatherings, individuals could organize special interest group gatherings that might be of interest to a subset of the group.
Wrapping up the meetup, I asked participants to brainstorm potential topics for future meetings, as well as ways to reach out to others in the greater Boston area. We also plan to compile a list of potential meeting sites, either for a regular meetup location or a rotating schedule. Members hoped that locations would have free wifi, though the group was divided as to whether access to beer was a requirement or not. :-)
All in all, I think it was a very successful first meetup. I was only expecting seven or eight people, so the fact we got 14 people was a very positive sign. Hopefully others who attended will share their thoughts about the meeting as well.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:50 PM | TrackBack
March 22, 2005
Local Languages, RSS and the Digital Divide
Susan Mernit recently posted a blog entry about the issue of RSS and its ability to display non-Latinate languages. Susan's blog was in turn inspired by postings on Rebecca MacKinnon's blog about diversity in the blogosphere. Both blogs include a quote from Richard Sambrook of the BBC:
I was speaking to one of our BBC World Service software engineers yesterday who made a point I hadn't appreciated but which potentially has a hugely negative effect on diversity: The issue is RSS does not have a way to display right to left languages correctly and is not very compatible with non Latin languages. I believe it just was not thought about deeply by the people and development effort behind RSS.This slows down the growth of non Latin RSS adoption. We need to develop multiple language RSS and hopefully redefine standards and approaches.
I've spent a lot of time in the last few years noting the importance of producing local-language content on the Internet. According to various surveys, it's believed that around two-thirds of all Internet content is produced in English, even though English speakers make up less than 10% of the world's population. Some languages, such as Spanish and Chinese, are finally beginning to blossom online, though they still trail behind English, the lingua franca of online discourse.
Unfortunately, there haven't been many global surveys regarding language and Internet content. One important study came from the Barcelona media company Vilaweb in 2001, which found around 68% percent of all websites to be in English. When the study came out, I decided to make a quick chart that compared the number of Web pages found in a given language with the number of people worldwide who spoke that language. Here's what I found. (Again, please not that this data is several years old, so take it with a grain of salt...)
Web Pages and Languages, ranked by the number of speakers per web page:
| Language | Web Pages | % of all sites | # of speakers | % of humans | people/web ratio |
| English | 214,250,996 | 68.39 | 322,000,000 | 5.34% | 1.5 people/page |
| Icelandic | 136,788 | 0.04 | 250,000 | .004% | 1.83 people/page |
| Sweden | 2,929,241 | 0.93 | 9,000,000 | .14% | 3.07 people/page |
| Danish | 1,374,886 | 0.44 | 5,292,000 | .085% | 3.85 people/page |
| Norwegian | 1,259,189 | 0.40 | 5,000,000 | .08% | 3.86 people/page |
| Finnish | 1,198,956 | 0.38 | 6,000,000 | .095% | 5.00 people/page |
| German | 18,069,744 | 5.77 | 98,000,000 | 1.57% | 5.4 people/page |
| Dutch | 3,161,844 | 1.01 | 20,000,000 | .32% | 6.3 people/page |
| Estonian | 173,265 | 0.06 | 1,100,000 | .018% | 6.36 people/page |
| Japanese | 18,335,739 | 5.85 | 125,000,000 | 2.01% | 6.8 people/page |
| Italian | 4,883,497 | 1.56 | 37,000,000 | .59% | 7.58 people/page |
| French | 9,262,663 | 2.96 | 72,000,000 | 1.16% | 7.77 people/page |
| Catalan | 443,301 | 0.14 | 4,353,000 | .07% | 9.8 people/page |
| Czech | 991,075 | 0.32 | 12,000,000 | .19% | 12.1 people/page |
| Basque | 36,321 | 0.01 | 588,000 | .0094% | 16.19 people/page |
| Slovenian | 134,454 | 0.04 | 2,218,000 | .036% | 16.5 people/page |
| Korean | 4,046,530 | 1.29 | 75,000,000 | 1.21% | 18.5 people/page |
| Latvian | 60,959 | 0.02 | 1,550,000 | .025% | 25.4 people/page |
| Russian | 5,900,956 | 1.88 | 170,000,000 | 2.73% | 28.8 people/page |
| Hungarian | 498,625 | 0.16 | 14,500,000 | .23% | 29.1 people/page |
| Portuguese | 4,291,237 | 1.37 | 170,000,000 | 2.73% | 39.6 people/page |
| Greek | 287,980 | 0.09 | 12,000,000 | .19% | 41.67 people/page |
| Spanish | 7,573,064 | 2.42 | 332,000,000 | 5.34% | 43.8 people/page |
| Lithuanian | 82,829 | 0.03 | 4,000,000 | .064% | 48.29 people/page |
| Polish | 848,672 | 0.27 | 44,000,000 | .71% | 51.8 people/page |
| Hebrew | 198,030 | 0.06 | 12,000,000 | .19% | 60.6 people/page |
| Chinese | 12,113,803 | 3.87 | 885,000,000 | 14.2% | 73.1 people/page |
| Turkish | 430,996 | 0.14 | 59,000,000 | .95% | 136.9 people/page |
| Bulgarian | 51,336 | 0.02 | 9,000,000 | .14% | 175.3 people/page |
| Romanian | 141,587 | 0.05 | 26,000,000 | .42% | 183.6 people/page |
| Arabic | 127,565 | 0.04 | 202,000,000 | 3.25% | 1583.5 people/page |
As you can see here, there were about one and a half English speakers for every Web page in English. Interestingly, the next highest ranking came from Iceland; while they're aren't many Icelandic speakers, they've produced a lot of online content, so the ratio of speakers to Web pages is close as well. But compare this to Arabic-language content: there were so few Web pages in Arabic at the time compared to the large population of Arabic speakers, you end up with more than 1,500 people per Arabic Web page. Of course, this data is a few years old, and I'd love to update this chart, but so far I haven't seen a recent study that tabulates the number of pages for each of these languages.
So how of all of this relate to RSS? Well, RSS has become the de-facto way to syndicate content on the Internet. Blogs and news services rely on RSS, as do a growing number of blog consumers. But like the recent Pew study demonstrated, the average blogger is white, well-educated, well-off and English speaking. There's no way we can seriously bridge the digital divide as long as people can't create or access knowledge in their native language. If somehow we managed to bring Internet access to every village in the developing world, it won't mean much if those villagers are stuck using the Net only in English.
Fortunately, the UNICODE project has helped bring local languages to the Internet by providing a universal scheme for displaying tens of thousands of non-Latin characters. This means that I can go to an Israeli newspaper and read it in Hebrew, or an Iranian blog in Farsi. Slowly but surely, language is becoming democratized online, even if the amount of content or readers for a particular language leaves much to be desired.
But what if RSS isn't capable of handling all of these UNICODE languages? Will a Gujarati family in New Jersey be able to read news feeds coming from Gujarati bloggers in India? Honestly, I'm not sure. Technically, it should work: if you take a look at Hoder's blog, written in Farsi (Persian), you can subscribe to his Farsi RSS feed. I don't speak Farsi, but when I tried to subscribe to his feed using Mozilla Thunderbird, I received tons of blog entries, all of which were indeed written in Farsi. So in this particular case, the system apparently works.
But does this apply to all languages supported by UNICODE? Frankly, I have no idea, so I'm hoping some UNICODE techie will jump in and set the record straight. But I certainly hope it can work for all UNICODE-supported languages. Otherwise, we'll see a new facet of the linguistic digital divide. For languages with RSS support, knowledge gets produced and disseminated at a rapid pace, allowing more online knowledge to be produced, and an expanding community of people able to talk about this knowledge and contribute even further to it. But for languages that can't be transmitted via RSS, they'll be stuck sharing content at a much slower pace, to smaller, less-connected audience. Internet users shouldn't be penalized just because their language isn't on a global top 10 list. So let's make sure that people can blog and publish in the language of their choice -- and that their RSS feeds will support them, 100 percent. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Chirac Declares War on Google Library Project
CIO Today has an interesting article that outlines a cultural "counter-offensive" planned by French President Jacques Chirac to rally against Anglo-Saxon Internet culture. When I first read the headline, I imagined Chirac dressed as a medievel crusader charging against hordes of Vikings and British toy soldiers, but in fact, his fight is with Google's library digitization project.
Google, as you may know, is working with libraries across the US to digitize more than 15 million books so they can be made available on the Internet. Some of us see this as important step to ensuring equitable access to intellectual and cultural resources over the Internet. But to the French government, apparently, this project is the beginning of the end of French culture.
The concern, according to France's chief librarian Jean-Noel Jeanneney, is that the creation of an immense database of content from the United States will taint future generation's interpretation of history and culture, as more people rely on the Internet to learn about the world. If online libraries are dominated by "Anglo-Saxon" cultural content, the French cultural perspective could become buried and lost.
Jean-Noel Jeanneney writes in Le Monde:
The real issue is elsewhere. And it is immense. It is confirmation of the risk of a crushing American domination in the definition of how future generations conceive the world.The libraries that are taking part in this enterprise are of course themselves generously open to the civilizations and works of other countries ... but still, their criteria for selection will be profoundly marked by the Anglo-Saxon outlook.
...It would have meant The Scarlet Pimpernel triumphing over Ninety-three (Victor Hugo's eulogistic account of the revolution); valiant British aristocrats triumphant over bloody Jacobins; the guillotine concealing the rights of man and the shining ideas of the Convention...
I find it very, very sad that French government officials are viewing the Google library project as part of a cultural war that needs to be fought against America or the English language in general. While too much of the Internet is English-only and society needs to make much greater investments in ensuring other languages and other cultures can prosper online, this doesn't mean that you should go after libraries just because they want to put their collections online.
There is no such thing as scarcity when it comes to how much information you can put online. It's not like there are only 100 terabytes of available space on the Internet that will eventually run out, preventing others from publishing content. This isn't Deadwood, the Yukon or the Comstock, folks; the gold in them thair hills ain't runnin' out. As long as companies keep building bigger and cheaper hard drives, there will always be more room for more content to be posted online.
So President Chirac, please go ahead and encourage Francophone libraries to put their collections online. But don't stop there. Encourage individuals and their communities to become content creators and citizen journalists as well. Encourage French universities to adopt open courseware initiatives, and fund French nonprofits to create community media portals like the new Ourmedia project. Bankroll Francophone nations in Africa to make sure their enormous wealth of cultural content can go online, as can their people, with the skills to become content creators in their own right. Please, go ahead and do all of those things. But don't frame this as a cultural war or counter-offensive against "Anglo-Saxon" Internet culture; giving all cultures the opportunity to share their knowledge, wisdom, literature and history via the Internet will benefit everyone, whether they speak English, French, Arabic, Vietnamese or Wolof.
The war shouldn't be against English-language domination. It should be against ignorance, illiteracy and attempts to control who has access to knowledge. By that standard, the Google library project is hardly an enemy; rather, it's one of the best allies we have. Bon chance, Monsieur Président. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:40 AM | TrackBack
March 21, 2005
Ourmedia Goes Live, Podcasters and Vloggers Rejoice
Today is the official launch of Ourmedia.org, which I checked out over the weekend prior to the official launch. I can't remember the last time a new website launch has had me so excited. The idea behind Ourmedia is really simple: it's a community where anyone who creates online media - video blogs, podcasts, photos, you name it - can have a place where they can publish it and share it with others.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is an important step forward in the world of online citizen journalism. Now, you don't need your own Web host to store that killer 50 meg video file you've just produced. Just become a member of Ourmedia, use their upload tool, and presto, your file is now hosted by the Internet Archive with its own Creative Commons license.
Yesterday, I tried to upload a file to see how it worked. I decided to use my podcast, Anatomy of a CNN Interview, just because it wasn't as large as some of the video files I've produced recently. As of this afternoon, my podcast was the most downloaded file on Ourmedia. I sincerely doubt this honor will last for very long, as lots of people will be uploading tons of stuff in the coming days, but it's still pretty cool if you ask me. :-)
Anyway, congratulations to J.D. Lasica and his colleagues for getting the project online. I am very, very excited about Ourmedia; perhaps the Digital Divide Network might be able to explore ways of using the site to host podcasts and videos for DDN members. Can't wait to play around some more and explore all of its capabilities....
ac
Posted by acarvin at 2:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 20, 2005
Boston Digital Divide Meetup this Wednesday
This Wednesday, I'll host a meetup for people interested in the digital divide in Boston. The meeting is officially a gathering of members of the Digital Divide Network, but we're not picky - anyone who's interested in the digital divide is more than welcome to attend. We'll meet at the Lenox Hotel City Bar at 5pm on Wednesday, March 23; the bar is located at the corner of Boylston and Exeter, right by Copley Place. If you'd like to join us, please RSVP on our Meetup page. Hope to see you Wednesday! -andy
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March 15, 2005
Technology Review's Special Issue on World Changing Ideas
The latest issue of MIT Technology Review magazine focuses on world changing ideas -- innovative approaches to ICTs, R&D, and high tech in general from different parts of the world.
They profile tech trends in around half a dozen countries. Amongst the most interesting are the articles on Brazil, which includes information CDI's telecentre work and other digital divide projects, and South Africa, which covers R&D, local language content and open source.
Meanwhile, the issue includes a series of world maps that identify each country as high, medium or low in a range of metrics related to ICTs and the digital divide. Here are the maps:
Since the maps don't have a text version, I've taken the liberty of typing up the top five rankings of the most relevant maps.
Top R&D spending as a percentage of GDP
1. Israel
2. Sweden
3. Finland
4. Japan
5. Iceland
Top ICT spending per capita
1. US
2. Switzerland
3. Mexico
4. Denmark
5. Sweden
Most Mobile Phone Users per 1000 People
1. Luxembourg
2. Israel
3. Italy
4. Iceland
5. Sweden
Internet Use Per 1000 people
1. Sweden
2. South Korea
3. US
4. Canada
5. Denmark
Highest Cost of Internet Access
1. Central African Republic
2. Sudan
3. Haiti
4. Gabon
5. Republic of the Congo
Personally, I wish the maps weren't divided into rather vague rankings (how "high" is high? What does "low" mean?), but they still make for interesting representations on the relative state of ICTs around the world.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:56 PM | TrackBack
March 14, 2005
Telecommuting Challenges
I'm very lucky in the sense that I get to telecommute on a regular basis. Having said that, there are times where working at home becomes difficult because of various obstacles to accessing my laptop. A case in point:
Nothing like having a 20-pound feline deciding that your keyboard is more comfortable than that nice wicker bed we bought just for him. He must have really liked the vibrations from the Chemical Brothers playing in iTunes. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:37 PM | TrackBack
Video: Baramati Bus Stop
This weekend I completed a short Web documentary on my visit to a mobile computing lab in Baramati, India last week. The video, called Baramati Bus Stop, is about six and a half minutes long. It explores the mobile computing lab, which features two dozen thin-client computers installed on a bus. I also show my visit to a rural primary school classroom, and meeting some of the local village children who aren't enrolled in school -- and thus have no access to the technology.
I've made two versions of the video, one without captioning and one with captioning.
Both versions of the movie are quite large - more than 45 megs. So you may want to let the video download for a brief time before trying to stream it. Better yet, download the whole thing first so you won't have to worry about it pausing due to bandwidth bottlenecks. The movie is released on a Creative Commons noncommercial/attribution/share-alike license, which means it may be viewed, disseminated and even edited for educational and noncommercial purposes.
For those of you who are interested in how I made the video, here are some quick tech specs. I shot the video on a Canon A60 digital camera, capturing about 15 minutes of footage, on location in Baramti, India. I uploaded this footage to my Mac G4 laptop and edited it using Final Cut Pro. Music was licensed from ProductionTrax.com; licenses for four songs cost approximately USD $30. For voiceover (narration) I used Final Cut Pro's voiceover tool, spoken through a LogiTech USB headset mic. Captioning was also done using Final Cut Pro. The total editing process, from uploading footage to exporting the movie as a Quicktime file, took approximately eight hours over the course of several days.
Anyway, please check it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Tunisian Cyber Dissident Dies of Heart Attack
Sad news from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) this morning: Tunisian cyber dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui has died. Using the pseudonym "Ettounsi," which means "Tunisian" in Arabic, Yahyaoui founded the website tunezine.com, to document the poor state of free expression in Tunisia. Because of this online work, he was imprisoned by the Tunisian government for nearly 18 months, released just prior to the December 2003 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Tunisia will host the next WSIS summit this November.
"We offer our condolences to the family and friends of Zouhair," RSF said in a statement. "This young man was a courageous activist and resolute defender of free expression in his country. He always fought for the right to freely inform his fellow citizens. Even prison failed to silence him."
Zouhair Yahyaoui was 36 years old.
-andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:28 AM | TrackBack
Introducing DDN Friends
We've just added a new feature to the Digital Divide Network website called DDN Friends. The idea behind this feature is to allow DDN members to identify friends and colleagues on the network and list them on your personal profile page. For example, if you go to my personal profile page, you'll see a list of several friends I've added to my list. This list appears below my bio, in the right column below my list of favorite websites.
When you're logged into the website and click on anyone's personal profile, you'll now see a link at the top right of the page that says "Add as Friend." Click on that link, and the person will be added to your list of friends, which you can review and manage by going to your About Me page in the edit profile section of the site. If you want to list your friends on your public profile page, you'll have to go to the About Me edit page listed above and click the box that says "Public friends." This will make your list public.
In future upgrades to the site, we may add other features to this tool, but for now it's a simple, handy way to list friends and colleagues on your personal profile page and build your social network on DDN. If you're a DDN member, you can get started right now; if you're not, please join us. Give it a try and let me know what you think... -andy
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March 13, 2005
Quoted in AP Story on Creating a $100 Laptop
There's a new AP story called MIT team bringing $100 laptops to developing world in which I'm quoted. The article explores a new project by Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media Lab to create a $100 laptop for use in the developing world.
Andy Carvin, director of the Newton-based nonprofit Digital Divide Network, applauds the project's goals, calling an extremely low-cost, durable laptop "one of the holy grails of bridging the digital divide."But he said increasingly sophisticated and versatile wireless handhelds like high-end "smart" cell phones and Blackberry devices may gain favor over laptops as the developing world's online tools of choice.
"That's not to suggest we should not have an inexpensive laptop," Carvin said. "They're parallel tracks, and it's probably a healthy competition to have both."
Anyway, check it out when you get a chance.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:30 PM | TrackBack
March 10, 2005
Podcast: Grilled by the Professor
While in Bombay last week, Rohit Gupta and I met an eccentric old professor who overheard us talking about Bombay's history. He then proceeded to join us and chat for about 20 minutes about all matter of subjects, from Jackie Kennedy to Bill Gates to the Baramati conference. I took out my iPod to record an interview with him, but as you'll see in this podcast, instead he swapped roles and decided to interview us instead. He was definitely one of the most interesting people I've met on the street in India.... -andy
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Open for Comments Again
It seems that the comment feature on my blog has finally been fixed; hopefully you'll be able to post comments to the site now. Please feel free to give it a whirl and say hello. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:55 PM | TrackBack
March 9, 2005
Podcast: M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at the Baramati Conference
I've just posted a podcast of Professor M. S. Swaminathan's speech this past weekend at the Baramati conference in India.
Prof. Swaminathan is one of the world's leading thinkers on the role of ICTs in global development, particularly in terms of poverty alleviation in rural, agricultural communities. The speech he gave this weekend is one of the best arguments I've heard to date on the importance of bridging the digital divide in the developing world.
Additionally, here are some pictures from Prof. Swaminathan's presentation. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:47 PM | TrackBack
A Review of Nightline's Blogging Episode
Last night, ABC's Nightline ran an episode on blogging which featured a recent meeting of the Harvard Berkman Bloggers group in which I participated. We had known the piece was going to run for a while, so it was pretty exciting to see it on the air. I got featured twice in the piece; I was the dude with the spastic arm movements in the blue sweatshirt with the number 81 on the front. They quoted me talking about the fact that only one-third of Americans read blogs, and also noting that even gossip columnists follow journalistic standards while we bloggers don't.
Also, I was very happy to see that they centered the episode around blogger Maura Keaney. During the Berkman meeting, I'd talked about how the media often portrayed bloggers as people hell-bent on tearing down others -- journalists, politicos, fellow bloggers -- rather than using the medium for positive social change, and that the real power of blogging is empowering a single mother to rally her community to fight local corruption, adopt new municipal legislation, etc.
After the meeting, reporter John Donvan talked to me about this issue, and asked if I could suggest any bloggers doing this kind of positive blogging in the DC area, so they could be profiled in the show. I reached out to members of the Digital Divide Network for suggestions, and soon I got an email from Maura Keaney, whom I put in touch with Nightline. So thanks to the members of DDN, Nightline ended up profiling a real person trying to use their blog to do local good.
Of course, I wouldn't be a responsible blogger if I didn't nit-pick at the program and critique it, so here are a few things I'd wish they'd done better:
Discussion of linking. The program made an attempt at explaining the importance of blogs linking to other sites, but it seemed to miss the point. They described linking like going to a bookstore, opening a book, and finding virtual connections to other books in the store. Close, but not exactly. It's not the connections between the content that's important, it's the connections between the people behind that content. Blog links don't simply point you to other sources; they connect you with people with differing opinions or particular ideas, creating an opportunity to interact directly with them. A lot of this interaction occurs in a blog's comment threads, but that wasn't mentioned either. Blogs are more then just vanity press; they provide context for social networks to interact and debate different issues.
Limited attribution. While bloggers may lack organized standards, they're usually pretty good about attributing their sources, and ABC didn't do that very well. As Steve Garfield writes on his blog, they featured a clip of his video blog from the Berkman meeting, despite the fact his blog uses a Creative Commons license that requires attribution when his content gets used by others. They showed his name for a moment on the screen, but only in passing, and they didn't make it clear the video came from him. Also, many of us who were quoted in the episode - Lisa Williams, Brendan Greeley, Taran Rampersad and myself - weren't identified, even though we were identified in Steve's aforementioned video blog. Personally, I'm not going to lose sleep that they didn't flash ANDY CARVIN, ANDYCARVIN.COM in giant neon letters on the screen when they quoted me; perhaps it's Nightline's policy to not use lower thirds (ie, captions that credit who's talking at a particular moment). But since they even talked about Lisa Williams explicitly, it's a shame they couldn't have mentioned her by name.
No info about who we really are. The show seemed to suggest that we bloggers are a bunch of enthusiasts who like to write about stuff, whether or not we have an expertise in a particular area. That may be true, but a lot of the folks they quoted in the piece actually are real, highly regarded experts. Dave Weinberger is one of the leading thinkers on Internet culture; Rebecca MacKinnon was CNN's former bureau chief in Beijing; Brendan Greeley is a podcasting expert and staff member of Public Radio Exchange. So if you didn't know any of us, you might have left with the impression that we're just a bunch of hobbyists rather than people who write about issues we deal with professionally.
Those issues aside, I still enjoyed the piece. It's easy for bloggers to tear into any attempt by the media to talk about them, like "These journalists don't get it." Some don't get it, others do, and given the number of pieces I've seen about blogging, I thought ABC did a decent job. I'd give 'em a 6.5 out of 10 -- not perfect, but far from totally missing the point either..... -andy