I will take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about ringtones. Yes, they are a waste of money. Yes, they are silly status symbols. Yes, they serve no useful function other than to annoy your neighbor. But I have to say it makes my day to hear Sarah Vaughn and realize that my phone…
Category: Information Society
The Times UK quoted me!
I was googling around the net and found out that the October 20 post (“Senator Coleman draws a line in the sand on internet governance”) from this blog was quoted in the Times UK newspaper. The November 12, 2005 story was on “Censorship is at the heart of debate on internet control” where I am…
Dear UN: Please get an RSS feed
The United Nations website is filled with a wealth of useful information and news about the world we live in, from on-the-ground updates on conflicts and security crises to statistical data on every country on the planet. And yet it tends to hoard that information to be mostly consumed by a small population of diplomats…
I am the ruler of Panganibania
I recently surfed across NationStates.net, a huge online community of people role-playing as nation-states. The site was created by author Max Berry to complement his novel Jennifer Government. The idea of thousands of people engaging in virtual statecraft in real-time online is so strange and cool. To play the international politics simulation, you first have…
WSIS Civil Society Statement released… 4 weeks after Tunis
A couple of days ago, civil society groups finally finished drafting of a huge omnibus statement on the WSIS. Full text of the statement can be found here. In principle I have no problem with the idea of civil society groups coming out with a statement in response to the World Summit on the Information…
Civil Society is Dead, Long Live Civil Society
Robert Guerra of CPSR asked on the WSIS plenary email list whether or not the plenary list should continue to exist or not. I will re-state what I said at the close CS plenary in Tunis. All the structures and modalities that were developed over the course of the last four years in the WSIS…
WSIS adds the Internet to UN’s agenda
Lots of folks have been asking me what was the main result of the World Summit on the Information Society. My answer is that the WSIS affirmed emphatically that the Internet and other information communications technologies fall firmly within the domain of the United Nations as a policy-making forum. Different actors wanted different outcomes from…
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…