Quite a while ago i read this post about the rise of cheap computing solutions. In light of the growing critique of the OLPC project, it got me thinking that perhaps, by focusing on the details of this specific project we are overlooking some of its most important contributions.

Just three or four years ago OLPC was the only project explicitly targeting the developing world and the market for low cost, simple computers. Today, we have over 7 competing models targeting this very market (potentially more). As long as this competition continues we can expect better machines and lower prices in this segment. Perhaps that is good, since industry is probably better in taking care of the technical aspects (even if sometimes it needs a push, such as the OLPC project), leaving space for the educators and activists focusing on developing a decent educational infrastructure to utilize this technology.

The main critique of OLPC from the very beginning was that it should be an educational and not a technological project. And I agree that the technological solution alone is meaningless and the true potential for change lies in appropriate adoption framework, particularly when we talk about education. At the same time, I think that its contribution to the technological push should not be underestimated. Does it make any sense?

On an unrelated note, now you can also use Skype on XO computers. I think this is really cool, even though Skype has been recently loosing its quality.

(Images taken from laptop.org, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5.)

I recently finished grading a lot of papers on the topic of “new” media and culture for Tarleton’s COMM 320 class. Our students had to react to the following statement using the class readings:

Digital media technologies tend to individualize us, to make us feel more separate; digital culture (i.e. the kinds of content those technologies give us access to and the cultural meanings that content regularly offers) tend to connect us, to make us feel more a part of something.

One of the prominent examples to how the “digital culture tend to connect us” was the social networks websites. This is probably why the following post caught my eye. It summaries results of social media study from Universal McCann, which shows major differences between the US and Asian countries in terms of online social networking. It seems that people in different parts of the world tend to join different social networks, which actually makes perfect sense, but undermines that globally-unifying factor that many of our students highlighted (also note the white spaces on the map). It also shows that even in the US itself there is not homogeneity in these environment. In fact, Eszter had a paper showing, among other things, that different ethnic groups in the US tend to join different social networking website.

It could be interesting to look at the complete report since it also suggest differences in patterns of grassroots content production in various regions of the world. I think when talking about “new” media and “digital” culture, it s very important to put things in context (and that is one of the ideas in my eyes behind thinking macro :). I wonder though what would be the best way to incorporate that in teaching.

Thanks to the dedication of our developers, we finally launched an updated version of WikiCandidate website. That’s exciting!

I wrote about this project earlier, so i will not repeat much here. With the update, the basic priniciples remain the same, practically everything on the website is editable. What different now is a slicker look and that your participation is now more visible (for example, now all the stories have by-lines).

If you haven’t done it yet, please register and take part in editing the website. The content you currently see on the website was generated by users and it is easy to create new one or to edit the existing. Please feel free to send feedback with your thoughts (especially if you had an experience with the old design too). Thanks!

The plan for further development of the site includes adding further features that would highlight the users’ contributions. We also have the survey (aka “donate”) module ready and as soon as we have the question pool ready and approved by the IRB, you will be able to “contribute” to WikiCandidate’s campaign. Also, you will be able to link your blogs to WikiCandidate’s blogroll and create WikiCandidate Gear.

While all this is being developed, our primary goal now is publicizing the platform. So, if you don’t mind, please give a hand and spread the word around. Thanks!

I have a WD external hard drive. It came together with a utility named WDsync. It is used to back up your files, particularly your Outlook. On the surface it appears sophisticated. Your files are stored in an encoded format and you can still browse them through the utility program (including looking at specific emails, contacts, or appointments).

However there is a slight problem - IT DOES NOT WORK WELL! Recently i reinstalled my laptop and used the WD backup to restore the Outlook content. First, instead of synchronizing the main PST file or creating a new one, the program added the old PST inside the new one, thus making it impossible simply using the Outlook. After manually organizing the outlook so it could be useful, i realized that many of my emails simply disappeared, emails in Hebrew and Russian turned out question marks or Gibberish, and all the contacts appeared in some weird format.

The bottom line is that i would not recommend to anyone using this backup utility. Try finding a better one or if you already know, please share.

Another post that spend a while in my drafts.  I wrote it after Syria blocked FB and i got in a short conversation with bloggers on Mideast Youth.

One of the commenters stated that “there is no doubt that these socialisation sites like Facebook, Orkut, Hi5, Xuga, etc and even Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail and all others are connected to CIA, and CIA feeds MOSSAD when necessary”. That sparked a conversation about the degree of involvement of the intelligence agencies in monitoring the web in general and particularly FB. My interaction was actually with Tamara, with whom i think we agree and the discussion was mainly on semantics. I think my problem was primarily with an idea of CIA, or any other intelligence agency, actually being directly linked to something like FB and monitoring what is going on in there. From my point of view, that would be crossing a few red lines unacceptable “even” in the post 9/11 reality (as if to support my thoughts Washington Post published this article). In other words, assuming CIA having a pipe plugged into FB servers is going a little bit too far.

Interestingly, just a few days after that discussion, i bumped into a Newsweek article about a mysterious murder in Italy. One of the prominent points in that article is the use Italian police made of the Web in order to track the suspects. They did check out suspects’ FB profiles, their recent Google searches, and used Skype to reach one of the other suspects. However, linking this back to the CIA-Syria discussion, i think this articles makes an interesting point. It seems like when they need it, the security forces are capable of gaining the information from social networking websites and more. The articles of course does not explain how exactly they gained that access, but i don’t think it implies that there is a constant surveillance of these public spaces. Actually it seems to me that it makes quite an opposite point and in this sense the new media are no different from the more veteran technologies (phone, TV, or library for that matter).

Also, as I was reading that, i couldn’t help but think about the degree of exposure people are reaching online these days. And it is not that they were forced into it, or had actually to exchange something about themselves in return for a product or service. FB in fact does not have any content or even a product. All it provides is a platform, but the choice what to put on this platform is totally in the hands of the users. This leads me to thinking about the changing awareness and perception of privacy among the youth. What is going on there?