Lots of UN techie news in the past days, I am just starting to catch up now. The UN World Food Programme issued a press release about a Somali refugee in Kenya who sent a text message to the London office of the WFP. The message was: My name is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you…
UNHCR launches online campaign for nine million refugee kids
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in partnership with Nike and Microsoft, has launched a new website ninemillion.org as an appeal to help the estimated nine million refugee children around the world. The objectives of the campaign are to: raise awareness about refugee children and youth raise funds for education and sport programs for refugee…
SL residents protest new reg policies – film at 11
Not a great showing for Second Life on their 3rd anniversary today — what with Snapzilla being closed, “database problems” causing people to not be able to log-in or getting knocked off repeatedly, and in-world protestors complaining about the new registration policies. 3pointD.com pointed me to a cool video done by SL machinima filmmaker Pierce…
New book on human rights in the Information Society
I just found out about a new book on Human Rights in the Global Information Society edited by my friend Rikke Frank Jørgensen. Published by MIT Press, the contributors to this volume examine the links between information technology and human rights from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Scholars, human rights activists, and practitioners discuss such…
Kofi warns of UN budget crisis in July
Kofi Annan has issued a warning that unless the budget cap is lifted, the United Nations will face a severe budget crisis in July. Last year, the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, which is responsible for setting the UN’s overall programme budget, only approved funding for the institution until the middle of 2006, with the…
Snapzilla protests SL reg policies
My man Hamlet served up some juicy political drama this morning on New World Notes. Cristiano Midnight, the owner of the Second Life photo hosting service "Snapzilla" as well as its parent site SL Universe, has just taken down his websites in protest of Linden Lab‘s new registration procedures that he says opens the floodgates…
Happy Birthday, Second Life!
Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the virtual world Second Life, which is celebrating in high style with a host of events over the next few days from live DJed dances to parades to keynote addresses by Philip and Robin Linden (the CEO and VP of Linden Labs, respectively.) Today my pal Illbixby of Ill…
American < yawn > Apparel in Second Life: virtual boredom on your desktop!
Apparently the blogorati are abuzz about clothing retailer American Apparel opening a virtual store in Second Life. Even CNET is reporting on the store opening. Designed by the talented Aimee Weber, the new store will feature, well, clothes and other store stuff. Like a cash register. Woo hoo! A CASH REGISTER! All in a…
Browncoats + feminists = Whedonesque Heaven
What do you get when you cross feminist activism and scifi nerdom? Apparently the perfect Friday night entertainment. The fan club the “Browncoats of NYC” have put together a benefit showing of the brilliant 2005 scifi flick “Serenity” at the Cinema Village theater in the East Village this Friday night. But this isn’t just pure…
New Net Neutrality Video: This Land is Your Land
I just a tip from the Media Policy Blog about a new video on Net Neutrality called "This Land is Your Land" created by Robert Oschler. It’s based on the Woody Guthrie song of the same name, and uses video from a CC-licenced CGI animated short called "Elephant Dreams". Robert’s revised lyrics are hysterical: They’ll…