django, ec2

The HTC will develop and implement technological responses to selected humanitarian challenges in developing countries. The objective is to create sustainable solutions that can be implemented locally, within the environmental, cultural, structural, political, and socio-economic conditions where they will be deployed. The HTC will also define repeatable processes and models that can be used to address future challenges.

incl. Ruby on Rails app to help process information about AIDS patients

on Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues"

on nina paley's film, "Sita Sings the Blues"

"the daily pulse of cool" - from emily chang

Serious networked governance paper from Joe Trippi, David Weinberger, Britt Blaser

photosynth

Two years after we last picked the web's cream of the crop, our latest selection finds that location-based services, work-anywhere collaboration and video are prominent

zoe keating

I’d offer the hypothesis that any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable.

In fact, so close is the relationship between Asperger's and web 2.0 that they should probably just rename it Asbrgr.

Freeloader takes power from its solar panels or via a supplied charge cable that plugs into a computers’ USB. Once charged, Freeloaders internal battery can power an iPod for 18hours, a mobile phone for 44 hours, PSP for 2.5 hours a PDA for 22 hours...

Cell phones, sentimentality, and the decline of public space. By Jonathan Franzen [!]

Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday. Ministers want to make it mandatory for telephone and internet companies to keep details of all personal internet traffic for at least 12 months so it can be accessed for investigations into crime or other threats to public safety. The Home Office last night admitted that the measure will mean companies have to store "a billion incidents of data exchange a day". As the measure is the result of an EU directive, the data will be made available to public investigators across Europe.

This post is an index to a series of posts made in August 2008 outlining major O'Reilly Radar themes. New posts will be linked in here as they go up.

On Wednesday, at the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas, Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IOActive, released the full details of the major design flaw he found earlier this year in the domain name server system, which is a key part of directing traffic over the Internet.