The Bold and The Beautiful
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Monthly Archives: February 2009
Lift09: Vint Cerf
To say that I feel so lucky is an understatement. Let me just get this out of the way “omg omg omg I am listening to Vint Cerf speak!’
Predictions
There will be millions of devices plugged into the internet. For example a sensor for his wine cellar, E.gArch Rock – Actuator’s needed to make the sensor turn it back on.
DNSSEC will have increased importance in the security of the web.
Vint loves sensors. He goes through a list of sensors he could add to his wine cellar, even the wine bottles.
IPV6
It is my fault that we ran out of IP address space – Laughter from the audience.
cloud computing introduces the internet problem all over again. How can clouds talk to each other?
well, just watch this for yourself? I am seriously in awe. InterPlaNet sounds fantastically cool. In watching his talk, i am reminded to be curious, keep your mind expanding just like the universe is. I hope to see Interstellar internet at some point. If he’s not losing packets with InterPlanet, my guess is Insterstellar internet would be just as successful.
Watch:
Lift09: Natalie Jeremijenko
Natalie would like imagine a future where environmental matters are not framed as something ‘other’ something far away. When a storm hits and a city is flooded, the act of nature can be framed as something that is part of climate change, yet it could be a failure of infrastructure.
There was a time when there were 350 industrial chemicals in breast milk, because of industrial pollution.
Children in America now have increased rates of Asthma, developmental delays, childhood diabetes and cancer. All these diseases can be traced to environmental contaminants yet peadiatricians are not trained to deal with these diseases, they were trained to deal with mumps and the like.
The environmental health clinic ‘office’ was set up using left over plastic bottles with a polyresin-like ‘floor’. she had it floating on the Hudson river.
She uses performance art to make a point about environmental issues. Case in point, she came up with a name-a-tadpole project where she assigned names of local EPA(Environmental Protection Agency) reps to the tadpoles. She then made a plastic container to ‘walk’ the tadpole. so when someone asks her “Why are you walking a tadpole?” or “what is your tadpole’s name?’ She can initiate a conversation about the environment, that could even lead to the discussion on why there is a 2 1/2 year drop in the age of puberty in young girls. All these things can be tied to environmental contaminants.
Mice are great biosamples. Your urine sample may not really give you much info about your contaminants, but if you had a mouse in your house, checking its bio-profile would give you information about lead levels and other environmental counters.
She set up a mouse trap and set up sections for mice to have a choice for drinking water with zoloft, plain water, vodka or gin. The mice drank the vodka. (please check her site for a better description of this project)
The greenlight is a solar awning powered suspended domestic lighting fixture that uses vegetation to diffuse light and reduce indoor house pollutants.
In the past when nuclear threats were a big issue, there were designs for bomb shelters, which were then included in building plans. What would a bomb shelter for the climate crisis look like?
*If you have the Best of Technology Writing 2007, there is a good piece about her. Fascinating work.
Why Localization Matters
Define:Localization
“In computing, internationalization and localization (also spelled internationalisation and localisation) are means of adapting computer software to different languages and regional differences. Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text.”
Whenever I think about technology and Africa, the importance of localization really sticks out in my mind. I harken back to the posts by Ethan Zuckerman and Koranteng Ofusu Amaah to revisit this issue. Ever had problems with images you uploaded to flickr?
As a software designer, Koranteng understands how hard it is to get the details of localization right – full support for different character sets and text that reads right to left instead of left to right. But he’s also interested in the cultural details of software design, which can be so subtle that you’re unlikely to detect them unless you’re directly effected by them:
Koranteng wrote:
The first thing I very quickly noticed: somehow all the photos that I uploaded to Yahoo Photos turned out darker than on Flickr (the services both resize uploaded photos). The photo-resizing algorithm used by Yahoo Photos was giving worse results. This was noticeable to me because a large number of photos featured darker-skinned people such as myself. The originals were fine and where there were lighter skin tones everything looked good, but with darker skintones, the resized photos were not so good.
Ethan noted that Koranteng found similar problems with Flickr’s flash plug-in and slideshow feature, as well as with Adobe Photoshops “Quick Fix” and “Auto Correct” options. Has anything changed since 2005 when Ethan wrote about this? I do not think so, but correct me if i am wrong.
Localization matters because cultural sensitivity in technology is paramount to designing products that work as well as possible for all communities.
Localization matters because, as this African technologist’s said…
“if it’s meant to be local, it should be locally developed” – Paa Kwesi Imbeah
So where are we today in terms of localization of software in Africa?
The most successful story that illustrates what opportunities there are in solving African (sw localization) problems with African solutions is that of Ted Kidane of Feedelix. Feedelix is currently providing products that allow SMS editing in Hindi, Chinese and Ethiopic. Software made by an African and now providing products to the world.
Another organization to watch and take note of is Kasahorow in Ghana. These guys are doing some incredibly cool stuff.
Kasahorow has been working on the Africa keyboards to aid in writing African content, in African languages. They are doing this for all the major operating systems. More info can be found here, including a downloadable package that you can try out. If your main language is Akan, Gaa, Gbe, Hausa, Igbo, Kikuyu, Luo, Swahili, Tswana and Youruba be sure to download that package.
Kasahorow is working on the ANLoc Project; a partnership with other organizations to address the issue of localization by creating locales, building tools, terminologies, standards, etc. More info about ANLoc can be found on African localisation dot net. Gotta love their tag line ‘The African Network for Localization’
There is a firefox add-on that Kasahorow released: Ladies and gentlemen, the Akan Dictionary for Firefox 3.0. Dare I say, cool stuff indeed.
Localization matters because it is empowering.
If ANLOC can succeed in its mission to enable Africans to participate in the digital age by making it easier for people to use technology in the language they are comfortable with, this only bodes well for the preservation of African languages and even fostering innovation. Ideas expressed in many ways, not just in English. (Yes, i do enjoy pointing out the obvious sometimes)
Like Jeremy Clarke of Global Voices put it simply: English != Global. The GV Lingua project, translates GV content from English to 15 languages, with Swahili and Polish translations having been added recently. Translations work best when the person has cultural context to allow for expressions in slang and language structures that are difficult to build into machine language. This is another example of localization + aggregation of content. Dare i say again, cool stuff indeed.
Another site to keep an eye on is AppAfrica, If i am not mistaken, there will be a project to translate tutorials from English to Swahili on their code repository.
On a global level, the ubiquity (firefox) experiment from Mozilla labs seeks to empower users and lusers heh heh to control the web browser with language based instruction. They want to make this available in more than 60 languages. Check it out here, and contribute to it if you can.
Watch this clip of Aza Raskin showing how ubiquity works.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
All in all, in real estate they always say location, location, location…when it comes to African tech i would categorically say localization, localisation, localization. (thank the Brits and Americans for the spelling differences). I would like to hear your thoughts on localization, if you have other examples, and of course more on the mobile web, which I did not touch on on this post.
PS: I am currently in Geneva Switzerland for the Lift Conference. The tag to follow on twitter, flickr and blogs is lift09.
Small Scale Wind Energy – A call for papers
Via Afriwea
An International Workshop on Small Scale wind energy For Developing Countries will be held
September 14-16, 2009, Nairobi, Kenya
The workshop will cover the following main themes:
• Wind energy technologies, their perspectives and applications in developing countries,
• Reliability of wind turbines, lifetime and strength of wind turbine components,
• Low cost and natural materials for wind turbines,
• Case studies, social and economic aspects of wind energy in developing countries.
Abstract Submission
Please submit a two-page abstract (700-800 words, in MS Word format) by e-mail to haqi [at] risoe[dot]dtu[dot]dk no later than March 15, 2008. Authors will be notified of the Committee’s
decisions shortly thereafter.
Registration
All participants are requested to register before March 20, 2009. The registration fee is 200 EURO
for participants from developed countries, and 1200 Kenyan shillings for the participants from
developing countries. After March 21, 2009, the registration fee increases to 350 EURO (developed
countries) and 3000 Kenyan shillings (developing countries), respectively. The payment of the
registration fee should be made either by credit card (Euro, Master or Visa), or by bank transfer.
Finally, after June 15, 2009, we take additionally late-registration fee of 70 EURO and 1000
shillings, for developed and developing countries respectively. The registration includes the access
to the sessions, coffee/refreshment and lunch/dinner.
Download the Workshop2009.pdf here.
PS: please stop laughing at the logo. My explanation, a lion was standing near a wind turbine, it farted a lightbulb or had a brilliant idea.
South Africa: State of The Mobile Web
Via ICT4D on Twitter
The Opera Mini mobile web browser is gaining popularity even in my household (ahem Nokia E71), and the latest numbers from the State of the mobile web indicate the stats for SA. I did not find any stats on Kenyan usage, i suspect its still not a ‘critical mass’ to warrant inclusion in SMW. Would be curious if anyone has mobile web stats from Kenya, please share, because Tim Berners Lee said so! 
Download SMW PDF here and read a summary with highlights and pretty graphs here.
From the report:
In 2008, we saw strong growth in Opera Mini usage all over the world, in both developed and developing countries. Social networks and search engines were competitive, as Opera Mini users determined their preferences.
emphasis is mine
I would not be surprised if traffic from the developing world eclipses that of the developed world in the coming years. If over 80% of BBC mobile site’s traffic comes from Africa…we are likely to see more dominance of mobile web usage by my fellow Africans.
I heard this bbc stat last year and cant for the life of me find the document it was mentioned in. Halp?!
Snapshot: South Africa (# of unique users)
• Live is back on the list after a six month absence.
• In December, neither Gmail no webmail.co.za are on South Africa’s top ten list.
Top 10 sites in South Africa (# of unique users)
1) facebook.com
2) google.com
3) wikipedia.org
4) yahoo.com (up from 5)
5) gamejump.com (down from 4)
6) my.opera.com
7) mxit.co.za
8. youtube.com
9) waptrick.com (up from 10)
10) live.com (back on the list)
Top social networks in 2008 South Africa
• Facebook was the preferred social networking site for South Africans in 2008.
Web site Growth rate in 2008 (users)
facebook.com 187.48%
peperonity.com 66.44%
mocospace.com 189.98%
hi5.com 59.84%
I am shocked, who are these people using hi5?!!
It is quite likely that the stats for Kenya would indicate Facebook as the top site, would love to see how Zuqka is fairing on. @kahenya i am sure the TOS for Zuqka would definitely trump FB’s current heavy handedness?
Women Inventors and Innovators: Meet Bola Olabisi
Global Voices had a wonderful meme that I marginally partipated in. I say marginally, because i did not exactly teach someone how to blog, though i added my 2 cents to a question posed about twitter, and was so glad to know that my input was helpful, and even more elated that the person I sorta ‘taught’ how to micro blog is an inspiration to many African women including me.
Pic of Bola at TED Global Arusha
I was fortunate to meet Bola Olabisi of GWIIN (Global Women Inventors & Innovators network) in Long Beach during TED 2009. She is one extraordinary person. If you were at TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, you may remember her talk about women entrepreneurs and innovators. If not, click here for my post and here for Ethan Zuckerman’s blogging awesomeness.
I wrote of her TED talk:
Hers was a very inspiring talk because she exemplifies action. She saw something that wasn’t being done and just got on with making change happen.
To get updated on her organization’s work check out GWIIN. It will have a blog in future. Meanwhile, follow her on twitter. She is http://twitter.com/bola25 Tweeps, please welcome her.
So her statement about twitter was ‘I am still trying to figure out twitter’
This was my brief response, keeping in mind that she has an E71/s60 Nokia phone, and I hope its also helpful to others reading this blog.
1. Only follow people you are interested in. To message someone, type @ afromusing and short message following. This will be seen by all your followers. to direct message (without all your followers seeing d afromusing…
2. You can download an app for your e71 twibble so you can see your twitter stream on your cell phone. (this uses your data connection, so be sure you have a data package or a wifi-capable phone)
3. For a desktop client, use http://www.twhirl.org/ this allows you to share links, which you can shorten or http://www.feedalizr.com/ which can aggregate all your other social networks (plus it is an app made in Capetown SA)
4. I have intentionally omitted the section on updating your twitter using SMS because I think that functionality was disabled for countries other than US.
5. You can tie your twitter acct to your facebook account with the app http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ such that when you update your twitter it updates your FB status too.
Happy tweeting…and a belated Happy Valentines! Add more tips in comments.
TED 2009 Reframe: Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee is simply one of the fathers of the www(world wide web). He is credited with inventing it, and he currently heads W3C
His talk at TED today looks at the history of putting data on the web. It is still difficult to explain what the internet is, and just how difficult it was to put together back then. It turned out to be a much bigger thing than he thought.
Data drives our lives now. Linked data drives it even more. The more things you have to connect together, the more powerful. Need an example? Wikipedia => Dbpedia
DBpedia is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated queries against Wikipedia, and to link other data sets on the Web to Wikipedia data.
Tim’s suggestion: Do not hug your data, provide raw data before the pretty website. Funny, I hugged the internet this a.m in his name! (on twitter)
*my battery is almost out, please hop on over to Ethanz for more TED2009 coverage. Thanks!!
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog
Updated on March 13th 2009 – The 20th anniversary of the www creation. TED.com posted his talk… watch below or on TED.com.
TED 2009: Wired For War
From pwsinger.com
“Dr. Singer is considered one of the world’s leading experts on changes in 21st century warfare. He has written for the full range of major media and journals, including the Boston Globe, L.A. Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Current History, Survival, International Security, Parameters, Weltpolitik, and the World Policy Journal.”
Dr.Peter Warren Singer studies and writes about war. He was recently on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, to talk about his new book ‘Wired for War’ If he cranked TDS’s geekometer to 11, It is quite likely that the geekometer here at TED will break.
If Moore’s law holds true, robots will become even more powerful than they are today. There is a revolution in the instruments of war. They affect not only the how, but the who of fighting wars. It changes the experience and identity of the warrior. You have to think of other countries working on robotics. What does this mean about the state of education, science and tech in America. As sw has gone open source, so has warfare. The components can be sourced from around the world. Bad guys can also make drones just like Hobbyists (like GeekDad) do.
2 trends
-Reinforcement of power of individuals against govt.
- Al-Qaeda 2.0 and a shift in tactics of terrorist organizations that might use robotics in their attacks. ‘You do not have to convince a robot that they will get 72 virgins for their sacrifice’
The future of war will also be a youtube war. The war will be recorded, most of the footage gathered by drones. This is typically termed as ‘war porn’. It will affect the public’s experience of war. When war becomes like an espn sportscenter version, it loses its humanity. Drone pilots also have high PTSD levels because of the difficulty in separating the experience of killing people, then having to continue with real life, go home and have a normal evening with the family.
What is the message we are sending by using machines? But when you ask people in places like Lebanon, the perspective is that use of drones is cowardly, not willing to fight mano a mano.
There are now wrinkles in the rules of war. What happens when drones misfire? How do you prosecute a robot for war crimes? Is it just a product recall issue? (as pointed out by a scientist PW singer interviewed).
The challenge: Are we going to face the reality of dealing with 21st century war? or are we going to be in denial because it all sounds too sci-fi. Is it the machines or is it us who are wired for war?
TED 2009 – Reboot: Juan Enriquez
Juan has a research and investment firm called Biotechonomy, which invests in new genomics firms.
From TED
“Juan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will cause in business, technology, politics and society”
Juan gives an update on lifesciences advances that have lead to tissue regrowth, molars, ears and even bladders to replace catheter bags.
He mentions advances in robotics such as Boston Dynamic’s Big Dog robot. (check you tube for a video of Big Dog’s amazing capabilities. It can carry loads, and self corrects if it is destablized e.g by kicking it – hard)
He touches on evolution and thinks we will advance into Homo Evolutis that takes all the trends in lifesciences, robotics and evolution into something quite…well futuristic.
Updated:
Here is a video of Big Dog