Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here — except if I missed them.

Wireless: To truants in Rome, SMS is the enemy
Students in Rome are becoming guinea pigs in an experiment that uses cellphones to deter truancy. Starting on Monday for about six months, when students fail to show up for class and the school has not been previously notified, a text message will be automatically sent to their parents’ mobile phones.
Source: Elisabetta Povoledo, International Herald Tribune, October 2, 2005

IBM Software for Older Users
IBM plans to roll out software Monday designed to make working on the computer and surfing the Net easier for aging workers, with tools that adjust keyboard settings and magnify web page content, among other features.
With the software, IBM is targeting the seven in 10 Americans who say they plan on working past the age of 65, according to AARP. Also, two-thirds of the U.S. population will experience some sort of disability beyond the age of 65, according to the U.S. census.
Source: Red Herring, October 3, 2005

The Future Of Photojournalism
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but some enterprising people are hoping some pictures may also be worth a thousand dollars.
The key is the budding citizen photojournalist. Regular folks, armed with digital cameras or camera phones, who happen to be in the right place at the right time are finding a national outlet for capturing breaking news. Now, several startup companies are hoping to capitalize on the trend. The latest of these is Spy Media, which will launch its service today.
Source: Danit Lidor, Forbes.com, October 3, 2005

Korea’s high-tech utopia, where everything is observed
A ubiquitous city is where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, governmental and the like) share data, and computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings. New Songdo, located on a man-made island of nearly 1,500 acres off the Incheon coast about 40 miles from Seoul, is rising from the ground up as a U-city.
New Songdo, a free-enterprise zone where English will be the lingua franca, is often called the largest private real-estate development in the world. When completed in 2014, it is estimated that this $25 billion project will be home to 65,000 people and that 300,000 will work there.
Source: Pamela Licalzi O’Connell, The New York Times, via CNET News.com, October 5, 2005

Go Ahead, You Can Ask Anything
AskMeNow Service Sends Answers To Your Handset In a Matter of Seconds
Source: Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2005

Italy Now Tracks Internet Cafe Use
Under antiterrorism legislation passed in July, the cyber cafes must now make copies of passport information for everyone who uses a computer, telephone or fax machine, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
Source: United Press International, via NewsFactor Network, October 5, 2005

Phone Reminds Muslims of Prayer Time
For Muslims, it’s a high-tech call to prayer. A new cellular telephone generates five automated reminders a day at prayer time, points Muslims in the direction of Mecca and contains a copy of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, in both Arabic and English.
Source: The Associated Press, October 5, 2005

Wireless Usage Expands to Machines
Machine-to-machine (M2M) connections offer the potential to streamline a variety of mundane processes. For instance, a soda machine might use a cellular connection to notify the local vendor that it has run out of change. Companies are interested because these connections can help them sell more products and satisfy more customers.
Source: Paul Korzeniowski, TechNewsWorld, October 5, 2005

The Future Needs Futurists
Some futurists welcome “professionalization” because it could make people in high places take their views more seriously.

“Making future forecasting more of a formal field could be a great step toward moving some of the techniques into public policy,” said Howard Rheingold, a futurist and author. “I’m not saying it’s possible to predict the future, but grappling with what’s happening today and where it’s going is an important priority that seems to be ignored on the policy level.”
Source: Joanna Glasner, Wired News, October 7, 2005

Social Computing Drives Emerging Applications
Social computing, or technologies aimed at building virtual models of complex human interactions or behaviors, already influence the manner in which people meet, share information, do business and organize their lifestyles.

However, beyond existing applications such as social networking sites that focus on dating or maintaining business contacts, the tools may someday be used to help measure basic human characteristics such as honesty and likeability.
Source: Matt Hines, PC Magazine, September 28, 2005

See you next week…