BBC - Press Office - BBC’s Director of New Media & Technology defines vision for the future

April 30, 2006 at 12:31 pm · Filed under technology

BBC - Press Office - BBC's Director of New Media & Technology defines vision for the future

A great article from the BBC about searching for stuff on the Internet (part of the rhetoric of Web2.0)

'Find' relates to the next generation of navigation. "Metadata is the information that we hold about our programmes; if we want to unlock the archive, and enable people to search by programme or theme, then we are going to have to have awesome metadata," said Highfield. "Unlocking our archive is one of the biggest challenges we face and, potentially, one of the richest gifts we can give to the nation.

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EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

April 30, 2006 at 12:20 pm · Filed under politics, technology

EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

One of the best activist sites to come out of Melbourne is the Energy Bulletin. It runs on its own purpose-built content management system (I think) and get a mega-amount of page reads. It aggregates content in relation to the concept of peak oil; or the time when global oil demand outsrips global supply (many say that this is about now).

Mission Statement

EnergyBulletin.net is designed to be a clearinghouse for current information regarding the peak in global energy supply. We will publish news and research concerning:

• The current situation and trajectory, such as oil & gas production data, economic or societal clues to decline profiles, and relevant institutional pronouncements
• Innovations or partial solutions to this crisis, such as renewable energy generation capacity and research (including EROEI assessments), alternative financial systems, or post-carbon urban agriculture
• Any other issues which assist our understanding of the broader implications of the peak

We welcome original content, and we especially invite industry insiders and independent researchers to submit their insights and findings relevant to these issues.

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Crushing the Web 2.0 Myths

April 29, 2006 at 12:05 pm · Filed under media, politics, technology, web2.0

net critique » Interview with Sole 24 Ore: Crushing the Web 2.0 Myths

Geert Lovink is a very well-known Internet critic; especially here in Australia. Here is Lovink at his best, taking on the myths of Web2.0 (interveiw on his own blog).

GL: Indeed, we have left the post-dotcom era, a relatively quiet period that gave people time to catch up with other aspects of life and develop ideas. Let’s get to the core of the Web 2.0 question: should we welcome the next round of nonsense investments? No. The problem is really not the Internet and the next generation of exciting applications. We should carefully listen to those closest to the fire, like Ed Phillips in San Francisco, who at the nettime list on March 23 2006 observed that surplus stock market money is, once again, roaming around the Bay area, looking for victims. Venture capitalists are Draculas, demolishing interesting Internet initiatives, forcing them into hyper-growth and takeovers. It’s the opposite of distributed and networked activities and their involvement only benefits the further concentration of power in the hands of Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. What is wrong is not Web 2.0 with its tagging, blogging and collaborative writing tools but the way business is done. Technology firms are a pray for those with “funny money”. You may look at it differently from the perspective of the individual firm but it is a fact that VC culture does not allow businesses to grow organically and develop sustainable business models. The heightened excitement only further fuels ’swarm’ locust behavior of users, leaving behind one ghost town after the other. The big difference, however, with 1998-1999 is that many more people now understand such underlying mechanisms. There are very knowledgeable critics these days, such as Nicholas Carr and of course The Register. And for cynics there is the good old Fucked Company. And do not forget individual investors, who have not forgotten all the money they lost.

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Ethics and Internet Research

April 28, 2006 at 4:39 pm · Filed under technology

The Association of Internet Researchers has produced an excellent guide to the ethical considerations of online research (2002) (thanks to Sean Cubitt for this link). It's called Ethical decision-making and Internet research and provides some good pointers for those considering and undertaking online research.

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EFF: Blogger’s Rights!

April 28, 2006 at 2:42 pm · Filed under media, politics, technology, web2.0

OK, the EFF (the Electronic Frontiers Foundation) have done some interesting work for many, many years. But they are a little too Libertarian for this blogger. And they are a little too, dare I say, American! It all about rights; the Bill of Rights, rights this; rights that. What about a Bill of Responsibilities? What about the responisibilies that that nation has to the rest of us? An Iraqie should rewrite the American Constitution to include a Bill of Responsibilities.

EFF: EFF Needs Your Support in the Fight for Blogger's Rights!

EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit group of passionate people—lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries — who depend on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; because two-thirds of our budget comes from individual donors, every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight —and win—more cases.

You Have the Right to Blog Anonymously. EFF has fought for your right to speak anonymously on the Internet, establishing legal protections in several states and federal jurisdictions, and developing technologies to help you protect you identity. With your support, EFF can continue to defend this right, conducting impact litigation to establish strict standards to unmask an anonymous critic in more jurisdictions.

You Have the Right to Keep Sources Confidential. In Apple v. Does, EFF is fighting to establish the reporter's privilege for online journalists before the California courts. With your support, EFF can defend news bloggers from subpoenas seeking the identity of confidential sources in more jurisdictions.

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Online Journalism

April 28, 2006 at 1:14 pm · Filed under media, technology

Another great webcast from the Oxford Internet Instutute: this time, from Bill Thomson.  

Description:

Nobody who uses the Internet or watches news programmes on TV can be unaware of the phenomenon of 'citizen journalism', found everywhere from personal blogs to sites like OhmyNews and Dan Gillmor's Bayosphere to the BBC, CNN, Sky and every other news outlet where people are invited to send in photos, videos or eyewitness reports of any newsworthy event they happen to witness.

Journalist and website editor Bill Thompson will discuss the likely impact of this new form of journalism on the mainstream media, attempting to place it in a historic context both technically and in terms of the way journalism has developed. He will look at the ethical issues which new forms of newsgathering and publication raise, both for contributors and for the news organisations which use their material, and consider how those training tomorrow's journalists should respond.

Biography:

New media pioneer Bill Thompson has been working in, on and around the Internet since 1984. Formerly head of new media at Guardian newspapers, he writes a weekly column, the BillBlog, for BBC News online and a monthly feature for new new users for BBC Webwise. He contributes to other publications both on and off-line including The Register, The New Statesman and The Guardian. He appears weekly on 'Go Digital' on the BBC World Service and occasionally on other BBC radio and television programmes.

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What is Democracy Player?

April 28, 2006 at 1:03 pm · Filed under media, technology

Democracy player is a free and opensourse platform to play online videos etc. Has anyone been using it? I would love to hear your feedback.

Features: Democracy Player is a new kind of browser for watching videos– grab webpages with video and video RSS feeds (including podcasts, video blogs, and BitTorrent feeds), and watch them full screen, one after the other. It's free and open source.

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PARADISEC

April 28, 2006 at 12:37 pm · Filed under technology

PARADISEC  is one of the most ambitious projects to come out of the 'humanities computing' field in Australia. Content is King! (well, with just a 'smidgen' of process).

PARADISEC (the Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) offers a facility for digital conservation and access for endangered materials from the Pacific region, defined broadly to include Oceania and East and Southeast Asia. Our research group has developed models to ensure that the archive can provide access to interested communities, and conforms with emerging international standards for digital archiving. Our research group is composed of investigators from the four participating institutions.

PARADISEC collaborates with other groups to promote good practice in field documentation and digital archiving of endangered languages: Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity (RNLD), the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC), the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Network (DELAMAN) and the Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Languages Data project (E-MELD).

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Ngapartji Ngapartji (Online Aboriginal Language Course)

April 28, 2006 at 12:29 pm · Filed under politics, technology

Ngapartji Ngapartji

Here is a highly innovative online course to teach Aboriginal languages (crew based in Darwin). What a great idea!

 So what is the online language course and how does it all work? The Ngapartji Ngapartji team are putting together a 26 part online Pitjantjatjara language course for audiences of the Ngapartji Ngapartji theatre production. The lesson making comprises weekly workshops, bbqs, bush trips, filming and production workshops in and around Alice Springs with young (generally 12-17) Pitjantjatjara speakers. Working with BighART arts mentors, elders, their families, Pitjantjatjara linguists and teachers, these young people become YOUR tutors.

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Organised Networks

April 28, 2006 at 12:03 pm · Filed under media, politics, technology

A prolific researcher working at the University of Ulster in Norther Irland is Ned Rossiter. Ned's research is on the power relationships in networks and the new institutional forms of networks. His work is an interesting read (if you are into that) but pity that he isn't a little more technically savvy.

Organised Networks: Transdisciplinarity and New Institutional Forms

The social-technical dynamics of ICT-based networks constitute organisation in ways substantively different from networked organisations (unions, state, firms, universities). My interest in this paper is to say a few things about the process of scalar transformation and transdisciplinarity as they relate to the invention of new institutional forms. Having established these background conditions, processes and practices, I will then move on to the topic of autonomous education.

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The Future of the Web Tim Berners-Lee

April 28, 2006 at 11:46 am · Filed under media, technology

Here is a talk given by one of the founders of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee. It has a number of different streaming formats which is handy.

This is an event of the e-Horizons Institute, organized by the Institute in collaboration with the Oxford Internet Institute, the Oxford e-Research Centre and the School of Electronics and Computer Science of the University of Southhampton. All the organizers are grateful to the British Computer Society for their sponsorship.

 Abstract:
The development of Web technology has been an exciting ride, a series of socially motivated technical innovations some languishing, others catching on in a viral way. As each development has suggested many new ones, and much of the original vision is still unfulfilled, there is a lot to do. This talk will discuss new challenges and hopes for weblike systems on the net.

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Civil Rights Defence (fund raising gig)

April 28, 2006 at 11:24 am · Filed under politics

Civil Rights Defence

Here is an interseting activist group here in Melbourne called Civil Rights Defense. Their main focus (at the moment) is against the Federal Coalition's Anti-Terrorist laws. They have a fund raiser on tonight called 'A night of Sedition' (which is part of the St Kilda Writers' Festival).

8pm sharp
Theatreworks
14 Acland Street, St Kilda
Includes Joel Ma (hip-hop poet from TZU), Vicious Soir, James Adler, Kathleen Mary Fallon and Marion Campbell, plus jazz, world music, short plays and much more

Tickets $10 at the door or book online at www.stkildawritersfestival.com.au 

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BBC is criticised over website plans

April 27, 2006 at 12:34 pm · Filed under media, politics, technology

BBC is criticised over website plans - Technology - theage.com.au

What a wonderful innovation from the BBC. I wonder why Rupert Murdoch doesn't like user-driven web developments? Too democratic perhaps?

Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate on Wednesday accused the British Broadcasting Corp. of using taxpayers' money to build a "digital empire" that would compete with commercial rivals.

The BBC, which receives about 3 billion pounds ($7.19 billion) a year in public funding, has announced plans to relaunch its Web site to incorporate more user-generated content such as blogs and video, as well as developing new broadband portals in areas including sports, music, health and science.

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EduBlogs: Free Wordpress Blogs for Education

April 26, 2006 at 1:18 pm · Filed under technology

Today in the Education Section of The Australian Newspaper there was is article about an employee of Deakin University (here in Melbourne) who has set up a system to give free WordPress blogs to those working in the education sector.

What a wonderful idea!

James Farmer claims that the server space to do this costs about AUS$4000 per year, which I find extrodinary because I know of people could do the same thing for about 1/10th of this cost.

Anyhow, for those of us who would like to introduce WordPress into our own teaching (but have more than 100 students) this would be a great service (if it can handle so many blogs).

Edublogs, his hobby, began last August. Farmer says it's growing 40 per cent to 50 per cent a month and reached 72,413 unique site visits last month. He was happy to cover the annual server costs of $US3000 ($4000), although he now has sponsorship from Chalkface Project, an international education publisher.

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Techne: Internet 2.0

April 25, 2006 at 2:00 am · Filed under history, media, politics, technology, web2.0

…people, institutions, companies, and society at large, transform technology, any technology, by appropriating it, by modifying it, by experimenting with it. Castells 2001

Summary

Technology is a modern word that combines the Greek techne (skill, metier) with logos (knowledge). Techne crudely translates into the ‘skill of knowledge' and is not just the skill of technique or the skill of creating a form. As I will argue, a developed empathy for 'techne' is critical to the development of interdisciplinary electronic scholarship. Without this skill it is difficult to find a balance between employing the right technology to the right humanities problem. For a humanist it is not simply the technology that is important; it is how the technology is employed in a cultural, social, and intellectual context that is important (beyond the sometimes narrow process-based technical discussions).

Read the rest of this entry »

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