The New York Times has a good piece on the use of Facebook by the elderly and isolated. LIRNEasia qualitative and quantitative research shows that plain old voice telephony and SMS keep people at the BOP connected and keeps them going on.

But Ms. Rice, 73, is far from lonely. Housebound after suffering a heart attack two years ago, she began visiting the social networking sites Eons.com, an online community for aging baby boomers, and PoliceLink.com (she is a former police dispatcher). Now she spends up to 14 hours a day in online conversations.

“I was dying of boredom,” she said. “Eons, all by its lonesome, gave me a reason to keep on going.”

The Internet is a public space, and like any public space it is not without danger. But the scare stories are overhyped as the NYT story based on a USD 50 million research project shows:

Good news for worried parents: All those hours their teenagers spend socializing on the Internet are not a bad thing, according to a new study by the MacArthur Foundation.

“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, “Living and Learning With New Media.” “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along…

I am guilty of not being on any of the social networking sites.  All the invitations I receive, I designate as junkmail.  It’s not luddism, nor incompetence, nor arrogance.  Just simple lack of time.   Just to deal with my email and tend to this website, I need 26 hours a day.  Where am I going to find time for social networking?  Knowing my obsessive self, I know that I will start spending more or more time making sure my entries are up to date and project the right message if I get in to this business.  Best to stay away altogether.

Now this may seem some maudling trivia that does not belong in a serious website like LIRNEasia.   But it is part of a larger and…

Given that Asian countries are taking the lead in mobile software applications (in Sri Lanka, already using open source), this is a very exciting development.

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

A Google-led international alliance announced Monday it is releasing open-source software that will free developers to bring the full power of desktop computing to mobile devices.

The Open Handset Alliance bills “Android” as the first comprehensive mobile operating platform that software developers are free to adapt in any ways they wish for video, audio, social networking and other features.

“We are developing a very open system and will distribute all the codes to allow people to innovate on mobile devices,” Google co-founder Serge Brin said in a conference call with the press and other alliance members.

“I’m really excited about…