27 Feb 2006
· comment
Google’s submission to Chinese censorship rules is perhaps more significant than Yahoo, or Microsoft’s submission, mainly because Google has, over the years, become ubiquitous to search. More importantly, Google’s submission invites concern because many people see Google to be this ultimate poster boy of free speech – irrespective of whether they are aware of Google’s official policy of ‘don’t be evil’.
Google has responded to large-scale media criticism by saying, that this move will eventually expand access. At their Official Blog they say “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.”
Continue reading →21 Feb 2006
· media
Thirty slides and one hour into the ‘utter meaninglessness of life without Oracle’ presentation I began to wonder if I had been suckered into paying to hear sales pitches that I did not understand or care for. This was just the first presentation of the first morning of LINUX Asia (February 8 to 10, 2006, New Delhi); the prospect of enduring such an onslaught for three more days was daunting to say the least.
Continue reading →30 Nov 2005
· media
The ICT4All (Information and Communication Technologies) exhibition that accompanied the World Summit of Information Societies in Tunis, Tunisia was, in real terms, for all. From 15-19 November, 2005, exhibitors of all shades displaying a range of technologies and solutions that could be called ‘liberating’. Consider telemedicine, community radio, playground computers etc. And then there were the usual suspects like Microsoft, Intel, and CISCO occupying center-stage with space commensurate with their financial muscle. The visitors too displayed the spirit of ICT4All, ranging from ministers and heads of states, to opinion leaders and NGOs from across the world, all the way to pure brochure hunters. (I have always wondered what they do with all the brochures they collect. Though one mystery has been solved, they put the visiting cards to good use. Ever since I have returned from Tunisia I have started receiving endless email offers to work with some relative of a deposed dictator to collect untold millions. They believe we will still fall for it.)The ‘digital divide’ has not yet been bridged: ‘empowerment’, ‘liberation’, ‘education’, ‘health’ for all, and ‘gender equality’ are issues, to name just some, that still haunt civil society. But it appears that a concerted effort is being made. Being at the Summit and the exhibition, I was left with no doubt that this is so. This is perhaps the first time in the history of the world that the buzz words have a ring of equality, development and empowerment around them – from open source, to blogs, to the digital divide…
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