“We must realize the fact that disasters threaten sustained economic growth of the society and the country.”
These were the words of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani addressing the opening ceremony of the first National Disaster Risk Management Conference. The function, reported Associated Press of Pakistan, was organized to mark the Disaster Awareness Day observed annually after the catastrophic earthquake which struck country’s northern areas in October 2005, killing 73,000 people and leaving 3.5 million homeless.
On the other side of the border Congress President Sonia Gandhi has said there is a need of effective disaster management to mitigate the woes of the people in future calamities, with floods affecting several districts of Bihar and other parts of the country. “The people of India have contributed…
Tags: Associated Press, Bihar, Chanuka Wattegama, Congress, Disaster Management, disaster warning systems, HazInfo, India, Lanka Software, Pakistan, Sahana, Sonia Gandhi, Washington DC, World Bank, Yousaf Raza Gillani.
A new study suggests that attitude rather than availability may be the key reason why more Americans don’t have high-speed Internet access.
The findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project challenge the argument that broadband providers need to more aggressively roll out supply to meet demand.
Only 14 percent of dial-up users say they’re stuck with the older, slower connection technology because they can’t get broadband in their neighborhoods, Pew reported Wednesday.
Thirty-five percent say they’re still on dial-up because broadband prices are too high, while another 19 percent say nothing would persuade them to upgrade. The remainder have other reasons or do not know.
Read the full story in Associated Press here.
Cell phones double as electronic wallets in RP
By Oliver Teves
Associated Press
Last updated 10:42am (Mla time) 09/30/2007
Philippine Daily Inquirer
SAN MIGUEL, Philippines–It’s Thursday, so 18-year-old Dennis Tiangco is off to a bank to collect his weekly allowance, zapped by his mother–who’s working in Hong Kong–to his electronic wallet: his cell phone.
Sauntering into a branch of GM Bank in the town of San Miguel, Dennis fills out a form, sends a text message via his phone to a bank line dedicated to the service.
In a matter of seconds, the transaction is approved and the teller gives him P2,500 (US$54), minus a 1-percent fee. He doesn’t need a bank account to retrieve the money.
More than 5.5 million Filipinos now use their cell phones as virtual wallets, making the Philippines…
Tags: Ahli United Bank, Anna Tiangco, Associated Press, ATM, Bahrain, bank, bank account, bank accounts, bank line, bank products, bank wire transfer, cell phones, cellular telephone, computer chip, Dennis Tiangco, e - commerce, e-wallets, Etisalat, EUR, financial transactions over mobile networks, G-Xchange, Globe Telecom, GM Bank, HKD, Hong Kong, Hong Kong CSL Ltd., Joseph Estrada, Kenya, Middle East, Mobile banking, Mobile banking services, mobile phones, money transfer service, MTC, Peso, Philippines, Ramon Isberto, Rizza Maniego Eala, SAN, San Miguel, Smart, Smart Communications, South Africa, telecommunications operator, the Philippines, UAE, United States, USD, Vodafone.
World now has 4b phone lines, says UN | Sep 05, 2007 | telecomasia.net
(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Largely because of the mobile phone boom in developing countries, telephone service has quadrupled in the past decade to 4 billion lines worldwide, according to a report from the UN telecommunications agency.
Tags: Africa, Associated Press, Broadband, cellular telephone, China, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, India, International Telecommunications Union, mobile phones, telecommunications agency, telephone service, Thomson, United Nations.
NowPublic, the participatory citizen-journalist website that began life in a garage in
Vancouver, Canada, has announced it has secured US$10.6 million in venture capital funding.
The website allows anyone – from amateurs to professionals – to post news stories and upload images, videos, and audio files. The company, that claims to be the world’s fastest-growing news organisation, says 120,000 people from over 140 countries have contributed to the site since its launch in 2005.
The website relies for its content on “crowdsourcing” – that it describes as being similar to outsourcing, but with unpaid or low-paid amateurs.
Participatory journalism has already begun to influence traditional news organisations. Gannett, the largest chain of newspapers in the US has begun incorporating news, blogs and community discussions from its readers in…
More on the Negroponte laptop. It has built-in wireless and a completely different interface.
BBC NEWS | Technology | $100 laptop project launches 2007
The so-called XO machine is being pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab in 2004.
Test machines are expected to reach children in February as the project builds towards a more formal launch.
Wireless networking
Mr Negroponte told the Associated Press news agency that three more African countries might sign on in the next two weeks.
The laptop is powered by a 366-megahertz processor from Advanced Micro Devices and has built-in wireless networking.
It has no hard disk drive and instead uses 512 MB of flash memory, and has two USB ports to which more storage could be attached.
…
Tags: 366-megahertz processor, Advanced Micro Devices, Associated Press, BBC, built-in wireless, built-in wireless networking, disk drive, flash memory, Manitoba, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology\'s Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, USD, Wireless networking.
The Sri Lanka Disaster Minister is quoted by the Sunday Times (23 July 2006, p. 2) as stating that “In the wake of last week’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Indonesia, the country was fully prepared within 23 minutes as an early warning reached the Met Department.”
According to the 17 July timeline.ppt, the PTWC and the Japanese Center issued the first bulletin within 17 minutes of the earthquake. The Minister indicates that the entire country was fully prepared within 6 minutes of receiving that bulletin. This may possibly be a world record.
If we assume the 23 minutes was counted from the time the warning was received, the country was ready 40 minutes after the earthquake. Even that is extraordinary. The Sri Lankan official who was…
Tags: Associated Press, Indonesia, Japanese Center, Met Department, PTWC, Sri Lanka, Sunday Times, the second anniversary of the disaster, The Times, tsunami, United Nations.
Nandan Jayasinghe –
We will start the event by lighting the traditional oil lamp. Next is a 2 minute meditation.
Nuwan Waidyanatha –
Welcome all partners including, Dr. Gordon Gow (University of Alberta), Dr. Dileeka Dias (Director Dialog Communication Research Lab), Prof Rohan Samarajiva (Director LIRNEasia), Mr. Nanadana Jayasinghe (Director Sarvodaya Disaster Management center), most importantly the Sarvodaya Participants (ICT Guardians).
Rohan Samarajiva –
We started the lat Mile HazInfo Program on January 23, 2006. The objective of my talk is to introduce you to the framework used in this project. The attendees are people who have faced the great tragedy that happened in December 26, 2004. Since then, 20 months later, we still have no solution in our nation.
Tags: Aburizal Bakrie, Addressable Satellite Radio, Alberta, alerting solution, All communication systems, Associated Press, Australia, Dialog Communication Research Lab, Dileeka Dias, early warning solution, earthquake, good information communication network, Gordon Gow, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Java, link technologies, messages to multiple technologies, mobile phones, multi-media dissemination, Nanadana Jayasinghe, oil lamp, Open source protocol, point-to-multiple media, raw software code, Rohan Samarajiva, SMS, Sri Lanka, Thailand, tsunami, University of Alberta, WAP, web links, wireless networks, XML.
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