Tag Archives: Google
Another telecenter story. Or will the ending be different because it’s Google’s?
The world is awash in telecenter pilots. I thought all the lessons that could be learned, have been learned. Apparently not. Google is bankrolling another pilot in Kenya, including a USD 700/month broadband bill. So, for sustainability we’d need around 700 users spending a tad more than USD 2 per visit? And that would be [...]
Does a websearch kill a tree?
According to this research finding, Google is warming the planet by giving us fast websearches. Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research. While millions of people tap into Google without considering the [...]
LIRNEasia research published in the ITID journal: Spring 2008 issue
A research report entitled, ‘Internet Presence as Knowledge Capacity: The Case of Research in Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Reform’, authored by Sujata Gamage and Rohan Samarajiva has been published in the Information Technologies and International Development (ITID) journal (Spring 2008). The full report is available online; an abstract follows: Abstract: Knowledge is an important [...]
Sri Lanka: Supreme Court suspends three environmental levies
Supreme Court today (Nov 01, 2008) ordered the suspension of three environmental levies imposed recently, reported Lanka Dissent. Accordingly, the levies imposed on telecommunication towers, CFC bulbs of more than 40 Watts as well as the levy imposed on vehicles in the Western Province were directed to be suspended. Should we open a bottle of [...]
Mobile internet usage on the rise
Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found. Some 7.3m people accessed the net via their mobile phones, during the second and third quarters of 2008. This is an increase of 25% compared to a growth of just 3% for [...]
Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, Sarvodaya, Big Brother and Broadband
Big Brother might not have liked Dr. A.T Ariyaratne. When visited Google headquarters, Sri Lanka’s Savrodaya leader was shown a central system that tracked every Google search and displayed the aggregate outcome in a huge globe. Dr. Ariyaratne’s first reaction was shock. He thought about the immense possibilities the omnipotent technology offers to Big Brother. [...]
Google does voice commands
One of the key actions required to make Mobile 2.0 real is to allow people to use voice commands instead of typed commands. Looks like Google has made a big leap: Both Yahoo and Microsoft already offer voice services for cellphones. The Microsoft Tellme service returns information in specific categories like directions, maps and movies. [...]
Seven Indians among 100 global influential telecom people
Global Telecoms Business, a journal for communications service providers around the world, has named Tata Communications (formerly VSNL) CEO N Srinath has been as one of the 10 most influential telecom personnel. Among the top 100 telecom personnel named by the magazine, N Srinath has been positioned at number 8. He has been credited for [...]
Cloud Computing: The Silver Lining in Economic Crisis?
Interesting point Kelly Glynn makes in apache.sys-con.com: It isn’t easy to look on the bright side of an economic crisis. The unstable stock market is provoking widespread talk of “belt-tightening,” and already thousands of people have lost their jobs. However, there is a silver lining for cloud-based services: companies looking to cut IT spending are starting to [...]
Wholesale broadband from the sky by 2010
An intriguing move from a consortium that includes Google that seeks to provide cheap and plentiful broadband to areas around the Equator: O3b, by contrast, intends to offer bandwidth on a wholesale basis to internet-service providers, and transmission services to telecom operators, to link remote base stations to their core networks. Furthermore, O3b’s service will [...]
Peer review through blogging
LIRNEasia is, among other things, a research organization. Good research is what goes through peer review. But peer review requires a lot of genuflection to the prior literature (not that easy to do, sitting in Sri Lanka/India/etc, and lacking access to all the relevant journals (despite the wonders made possible by Google). It takes a [...]
Does Google reduce our ability to think?
When I started teaching, a weekly visit to the library was a necessary ritual. Physically leafing through the indexes and abstracts, writing down the classification numbers (I still fondly recall the HE 7700s), and then walking into the stacks to pick up the books, scan for others that may be of interest that didn’t come [...]
Google on mobile?
It appears that erstwhile rivals Google and Verizon are talking about putting Google on the mobile palmtop. Good news for those who see a mobile-centric future, like us.
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