2009

1)

Europe’s Information Society: Europe leads the world in mobile phone services with the number of subscriptions in 2008 at 119% of the EU population (up 7 percentage points from 2007), well ahead of the US (87%) and Japan (84%). This is a finding of today’s Commission progress report on the single telecoms market. Despite the economic crisis, the EU’s telecoms sector (worth about 3% of EU GDP) continued to grow in 2008 with revenues estimated at above €300 billion, up…

Friends, I’ve just been invited to speak at the Conference on Cyber Warfare, sponsored by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia. The topic of my talk will be “‘Web War One’ ? Really? Media Coverage of Cyberattacks.” Wow, it’s such an honor to be asked to speak in front of the world’s cybersecurity community — many of whom I’ve interviewed in the past. And big ups to Kenneth Geers from the Center, whom I interviewed…

Today is the first annual Ada Lovelace Day, a day where we honor women in technology. I pledged in January that if 1,000 other people agreed to blog about a woman that they admire in technology that I would do the same. Ada Lovelace was a 19th century Englishwoman who is often considered to be the first programmer. The daughter of Lord Byron, she worked on Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, a very early computer. In honor of Ada, I have…

Just a quick reminder: I’ll be speaking in Madison to kick off the “Africa Forward” lecture series this Thursday on the UW-Madison campus: Thursday, March 26, 2009 3:30pm – 5:30pm 5055 Vilas Hall 821 University Avenue I’ll also be speaking on Friday and Saturday (March 27-28) at the Engineers without Borders conference in Milwaukee, talking about how to best leverage information technology in Africa. Tell your friends, and if you’re a blog reader/Twitter follower, please come say hi!

Happy New Year! While I’m unable to celebrate Noruz with my family in California this year, I will be thinking of them and all others who are celebrating this holiday. Feel free to enjoy a photo of the haft seen at Le Vent de Perse, the local Lyon shop where I’ve been taking Persian lessons, and to enjoy this recent piece of Noruz reportage on Pulse of the Planet. Oh, and here’s my haft seen from last year, in Oakland.…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the death of Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): New York – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston – 4 pm Eastern – WGBH –…

Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders said today it was deeply shocked at the death in a Tehran prison of blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi and called for the immediate opening of an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy. His lawyer, Mohamed Ali Dadkhah, was informed of the blogger’s death by a doctor, Hesem Firozi, who is himself imprisoned. The young blogger had been depressed and no longer able to cope with prison conditions. The doctor said, “The death of this…

Radio Free Europe: March 14, 2009 By Golnaz Esfandiari Farid Hashemi’s latest “status update” on his Facebook page says a lot about his state of mind. “It’s better to be born as a dog in a democracy than to be a human in a dictatorship,” he writes. Twenty-eight-year-old Hashemi is a senior member of Iran’s largest pro-reform student group, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat, which is a regular target of pressure from the state. He is also one of the thousands of…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the recent LIFT conference that I attended in Geneva is airing tomorrow on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. That’s right, my radio career has gone international! It will be available on your local CBC station at the following times: Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. (12:00 NT) Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. (4:30 NT) If you find yourself outside the reach of the CBC’s antennae, feel free to listen to it online, here, or…