A blogger with accreditation at the U.N.
Matthew Lee, a well-known gadfly who often presses banks to revise their policies on mortgage loans to the poor, is the only blogger at the United Nations with media credentials, entitling him to free office space and access to briefings and press conferences. There had been a second accredited blogger, Pincas Jawetz, a 73-year-old retired energy policy consultant, but he was ejected last month on the grounds that he had distracted too many briefings with off-topic questions.
The United Nations is one of the only institutions of its size and importance that currently allow bloggers not affiliated with larger, more traditional media companies into the permanent press corps.
Source: Maria Aspan, The New York Times, April 30, 2007
Researchers create interactive map with Google technology to track avian flu spread
An interactive “supermap” that portrays the mutations and spread of the avian flu around the globe over time should help researchers and policy makers better understand the virus. The research team used data from the known evolution and spread of the avian flu, known as H5N1, to create a roadmap of viral spread in time and space, said CU-Boulder ecology and evolutionary biology Assistant Professor Robert Guralnick, a study co-author. The team projected genetic and geographic information onto an interactive globe using Google Earth technology, allowing users to fly virtually around the planet.
[Note: "'Supermap' Of Avian Flu Yields New Info On Source/Spread," a news release from Ohio State University, contains additional detals and images.]
Source: University of Colorado at Boulder news release, April 30, 2007
British motorists face spy-in-sky monitoring
Spies in the sky may track motorists in Britain within a decade if the government goes ahead with controversial plans to manage traffic flow and introduce road fees for drivers, scientists said on Tuesday. The plans were unveiled in November in a report on future transportation policies designed to help cut traffic congestion. The plans prompted 1.8 million people to sign an electronic protest petition.
Source: Reuters, May 1, 2007
A camera developed by computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, would obscure, with an oval, the faces of people who appear on surveillance videos. These so-called respectful cameras, which are still in the research phase, could be used for day-to-day surveillance applications and would allow for the privacy oval to be removed from a given set of footage in the event of an investigation.
Source: Brendan Borrell, Technology Review, May 2, 2007
National ID card a disaster in the making
Six years into the “new normal” of terror alerts, identification checks, electronic surveillance, and increasing levels of secrecy-based security, the prospect of a national identification card needs serious public debate. In March, the Department of Homeland Security released its long-awaited guidance document regarding national implementation of the Real ID program, as part of its post-9/11 national security initiatives. It is perhaps quite telling that despite bipartisan opposition, Real ID was buried in a 2005 “must-pass” military spending bill and enacted into law without public debate or congressional hearings.
Source: Richard Forno and Bruce Schneier, for CNET News.com, May 2, 2007
Russell Grant got “the tap on the shoulder” a few weeks ago. He joined 6.8 million other unemployed U.S. workers when he was laid off from his job as a system administrator at a La Jolla, California, biomedical firm. But Mr. Grant’s pain was Jake Ludwinski’s gain. That’s because Mr. Ludwinski is the co-founder of LayoffSpace.com, a social networking site launched Friday that aims to become the Myspace.com for the jobless.
Source: Ken Schachter, Red Herring, May 4, 2007
Web alarms, mobile alerts aim to make you safer
From emergency message networks that can reach 100,000 people within minutes, to alarm systems that allow you to monitor your home over the Web, new technologies are aiming to make U.S. consumers feel safer.
Source: Reuters, May 5, 2007
A blogger with accreditation at the U.N.
Matthew Lee, a well-known gadfly who often presses banks to revise their policies on mortgage loans to the poor, is the only blogger at the United Nations with media credentials, entitling him to free office space and access to briefings and press conferences. There had been a second accredited [...]
