We’ll see which governments were naughty and nice pretty soon. Jan Elliason, the current President of the General Assembly, is cracking the whip on government delegations to get them to finish their work on several UN reform issues before the end of the year. In a December 5 letter to all UN Missions, Elliason urged…
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Jerk at Intel calls MIT’s $100 laptop a “gadget”
Those guys need to get a clue about what the developing world needs. Hint: it ain’t a biege windows box with a 19″ monitor in every hut. News.com reports that Intel chief Craig Barrett made disparaging remarks about MIT’s $100 laptop project recently, calling the hand-cranked computer a “gadget.” They quote him as saying: Mr….
ICTs for Peace forgotten by the WSIS
I just finished reading the report “Information and Communication Technology for Peace” released by the UN ICT Task Force at the WSIS in Tunis will relatively little fanfare. The report argues convincingly that “ICT4Peace” is a relatively unexplored international policy area that deserves closer attention. The full title of the report is “The Role of…
Habitat JAM post-script
The Habitat JAM finished yesterday afternoon. I still don’t know if it was worth it, but it was certainly an interesting experiment. On an email discussion group I’m in with a bunch of e-democracy folks, there was some feedback on the Habitat JAM forum this weekend. A few of us served as volunteer facilitators, so…
Habitat JAM starts today
“Habitat JAM,” The Canadian-sponsored online forum on urban sustainability starts today and runs through Saturday, December 3. I’m signed up to help with some of the facilitating / moderating duties. I hear that 28,000 folks have signed up for the three-day virtual conference. Habitat JAM is a preparatory event to the third session of the…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the Tunis WSIS
In December 2003, Ralf Bendrath and I put together a listing of the high and low points from the Geneva World Summit on the Information Society, which we called "How Was the Summit?" In that same spirit, we submit to you our very personal take on the best and worst of the Tunis WSIS. The…
Mousers – Cat versus Tech
So living in New York, you have the typical rude inhabitants — the guy who take up three seats on the subway, bike messengers zooming down sideways, the surly waitroid at the corner diner. And that’s just the humans. Everyone living in the city, whether on Central Park West or Avenue D, has to deal…
This is what a government-filtered internet looks like
It apparently looks like a 404 “Site Not Found” Error. The Register IT news site did a story yesterday on how the Tunisian authorities are surreptitiously blocking access to content on the internet deemed offensive to the regime by throwing up fake 404 “site not found” errors. They do this by reportedly using web filtering…
How will you celebrate World Information Society Day?
How are you going to celebrate Information Society Day? Send an e-greeting card to Tim Werners-Lee Get all online gamers to respect virtual “cease-fire” on Quake and Halo Email 12 of your friends and family a message that Mr. Yoshio Utsumi, head of the ITU, will give each of them $50 if they forward this…
A note of thanks to WSIS civil society
Well, its all over. Too much to sum up right now. But I just sent this message to the WSIS civil society listserv. Yesterday afternoon, the smiling, broad face of President Ben Ali appearing simultaneously on every flat screen display in the entire Kram convention center signalled the final end of the World Summit on…