Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Mac Trojan Horse Boonana/Koobface - Reviewed

A trojan horse has been discovered that affects Mac OS X users, dubbed “trojan.osx.boonana.a” or ‘Koobface.’ An infected machine will hijack users social network accounts and attempt to spread the trojan further by sending out spam messages from your username.

Thus far the trojan has been spread through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and eMail. Here is the method of operation:

The trojan behaves like a worm, by trying to bait users on various social networks to click a link. The link asks “Is this you in this video?” and, if clicked, will send a user to another website which attempts to load a Java applet, giving the user a standard Mac OS X Java Security Alert and certificate request.

If the Java applet is allowed to load, it will download files to your local machine and then start a background process which attempts to propagate the trojan. You can simply click on “Deny” to prevent any further trouble, which prevents the malicious code from loading.

Intego explains the trojan as follows:

This threat is a Mac OS X version of the Koobface worm, which is served as part of a multi-platform attack via a malicious Java applet. The malware itself is made up of a number of elements, though in order to simplify, we will use the term “Trojan horse” to describe it. (Technically, it propagates as a worm, is installed via a Trojan Horse, and installs a rootkit, backdoor, command and control, and other elements.)

The trojan also effects Windows users. The easiest way for Mac and Windows users to protect themselves from the trojan is to avoid clicking dubious links from untrusted sources and to deny sketchy Java applets. Another option is to disable Java in your web browser.

If you are concerned that you have been affected by the Koobface trojan, you can get a free removal tool through SecureMac, who rates the risk as “Critical.” Currently the download link sends you to MacScan, but this is expected to change when the removal tool is released.

Mac Trojan Horse Boonana/Koobface - Reviewed

A trojan horse has been discovered that affects Mac OS X users, dubbed “trojan.osx.boonana.a” or ‘Koobface.’ An infected machine will hijack users social network accounts and attempt to spread the trojan further by sending out spam messages from your username.

Thus far the trojan has been spread through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and eMail. Here is the method of operation:

The trojan behaves like a worm, by trying to bait users on various social networks to click a link. The link asks “Is this you in this video?” and, if clicked, will send a user to another website which attempts to load a Java applet, giving the user a standard Mac OS X Java Security Alert and certificate request.

If the Java applet is allowed to load, it will download files to your local machine and then start a background process which attempts to propagate the trojan. You can simply click on “Deny” to prevent any further trouble, which prevents the malicious code from loading.

Intego explains the trojan as follows:

This threat is a Mac OS X version of the Koobface worm, which is served as part of a multi-platform attack via a malicious Java applet. The malware itself is made up of a number of elements, though in order to simplify, we will use the term “Trojan horse” to describe it. (Technically, it propagates as a worm, is installed via a Trojan Horse, and installs a rootkit, backdoor, command and control, and other elements.)

The trojan also effects Windows users. The easiest way for Mac and Windows users to protect themselves from the trojan is to avoid clicking dubious links from untrusted sources and to deny sketchy Java applets. Another option is to disable Java in your web browser.

If you are concerned that you have been affected by the Koobface trojan, you can get a free removal tool through SecureMac, who rates the risk as “Critical.” Currently the download link sends you to MacScan, but this is expected to change when the removal tool is released.

Mac Trojan Horse Boonana/Koobface - Reviewed

A trojan horse has been discovered that affects Mac OS X users, dubbed “trojan.osx.boonana.a” or ‘Koobface.’ An infected machine will hijack users social network accounts and attempt to spread the trojan further by sending out spam messages from your username.

Thus far the trojan has been spread through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and eMail. Here is the method of operation:

The trojan behaves like a worm, by trying to bait users on various social networks to click a link. The link asks “Is this you in this video?” and, if clicked, will send a user to another website which attempts to load a Java applet, giving the user a standard Mac OS X Java Security Alert and certificate request.

If the Java applet is allowed to load, it will download files to your local machine and then start a background process which attempts to propagate the trojan. You can simply click on “Deny” to prevent any further trouble, which prevents the malicious code from loading.

Intego explains the trojan as follows:

This threat is a Mac OS X version of the Koobface worm, which is served as part of a multi-platform attack via a malicious Java applet. The malware itself is made up of a number of elements, though in order to simplify, we will use the term “Trojan horse” to describe it. (Technically, it propagates as a worm, is installed via a Trojan Horse, and installs a rootkit, backdoor, command and control, and other elements.)

The trojan also effects Windows users. The easiest way for Mac and Windows users to protect themselves from the trojan is to avoid clicking dubious links from untrusted sources and to deny sketchy Java applets. Another option is to disable Java in your web browser.

If you are concerned that you have been affected by the Koobface trojan, you can get a free removal tool through SecureMac, who rates the risk as “Critical.” Currently the download link sends you to MacScan, but this is expected to change when the removal tool is released.

Xperia X10: Keep in touch with style

Managing Facebook and Twitter updates becomes even easier with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

When you look at the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the first thing that will grab your attention is its large 4in screen.

The screen dominates the front of the smartphone and is capable of displaying beautiful and vivid pictures.

The X10 runs on Android 1.6 which is a tad older than other smartphones in the market which use Android 2.1.

I'm really new when it comes to the Android operating system or even smartphones so it took awhile to adapt to the user interface. I found it cool that I could switch screens by just swiping my finger horizontally or vertically on the screen.

However, I was not thrilled that applications took a littler longer to launch. As I am a little impatient, the screen will be covered with fingerprints due to repeated tappings by the time the app actually launched.

Xperia X10: Keep in touch with style

Managing Facebook and Twitter updates becomes even easier with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

When you look at the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the first thing that will grab your attention is its large 4in screen.

The screen dominates the front of the smartphone and is capable of displaying beautiful and vivid pictures.

The X10 runs on Android 1.6 which is a tad older than other smartphones in the market which use Android 2.1.

I'm really new when it comes to the Android operating system or even smartphones so it took awhile to adapt to the user interface. I found it cool that I could switch screens by just swiping my finger horizontally or vertically on the screen.

However, I was not thrilled that applications took a littler longer to launch. As I am a little impatient, the screen will be covered with fingerprints due to repeated tappings by the time the app actually launched.

Xperia X10: Keep in touch with style

Managing Facebook and Twitter updates becomes even easier with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

When you look at the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the first thing that will grab your attention is its large 4in screen.

The screen dominates the front of the smartphone and is capable of displaying beautiful and vivid pictures.

The X10 runs on Android 1.6 which is a tad older than other smartphones in the market which use Android 2.1.

I'm really new when it comes to the Android operating system or even smartphones so it took awhile to adapt to the user interface. I found it cool that I could switch screens by just swiping my finger horizontally or vertically on the screen.

However, I was not thrilled that applications took a littler longer to launch. As I am a little impatient, the screen will be covered with fingerprints due to repeated tappings by the time the app actually launched.

The best technologies of the decade

With only few days left before we enter a new year, a lot of new technologies has been explored by us since last decade. The fastest growing technologies is in ICT. Below are the best of technologies so far that we can consider as the best within years period of time;

AJAX

It’s hard to remember what life was like before Asynchronous JavaScript and XML came along, so I’ll prod your memory. It was boring. Web 1.0 consisted of a lot of static web pages, where every mouse click was a round trip to the web server. If you wanted rich content, you had to embed a Java applet in the page, and pray that the client browser supported it.

Without the advent of AJAX, we wouldn’t have Web 2.0, GMail, or most of the other cloud-based web applications. Flash is still popular, but especially with HTML 5 on the way, even functionality that formerly required a RIA like Flash or Silverlight can now be accomplished with AJAX.

Twitter

When they first started, blogs were just what they said, web logs. In other words, a journal of interesting web sites that the author had encountered. These days, blogs are more like platforms for rants, opinions, essays, and anything else on the writer’s mind. Then along came Twitter. Sure, people like to find out what J-Lo had for dinner, but the real power of the 140 character dynamo is that it has brought about a resurgence of real web logging. The most useful tweets consist of a Tiny URL and a little bit of context. Combine that with the use of Twitter to send out real time notices about everything from breaking news to the current specials at the corner restaurant, and it’s easy to see why Twitter has become a dominant player.

Ubiquitous WiFi

I want you to imagine you’re on the road in the mid-90s. You get to your hotel room, and plop your laptop on the table. Then you get out your handy RJ-11 cord, and check to see if the hotel phone has a data jack (most didn’t), or if you’ll have to unplug the phone entirely. Then you’d look up the local number for your ISP, and have your laptop dial it, so you could suck down your e-mail at an anemic 56K.

Now, of course, WiFi is everywhere. You may end up having to pay for it, but fast Internet connectivity is available everywhere from your local McDonalds to your hotel room to an airport terminal. Of course, this is not without its downsides, since unsecured WiFi access points have led to all sorts of security headaches, and using an open access point is a risky proposition unless your antivirus software is up to date, but on the whole, ubiquitous WiFi has made the world a much more connected place.

Phones Get Smarter

In the late 90s, we started to see the first personal digital assistants emerge, but this has been the decade when the PDA and the cell phone got married and had a baby called the smartphone. Palm got the ball rolling with the Treos about the same time that Windows Mobile started appearing on phones, and RIM’s Blackberry put functional phones in the hands of business, but it was Apple that took the ball and ran for the touchdown with the iPhone. You can argue if the droid is better than the 3GS or the Pre, but the original iPhone was the game-changer that showed what a smartphone really could do, including the business model of the App Store,

The next convergence is likely to be with Netbooks, as more and more of the mini-laptops come with 3G service integrated in them, and VoIP services such as Skype continue to eat into both landline and cellular business.

Open Source Goes Mainstream

Aha..this is what I like most. Quick! Name 5 open source pieces of software you might have had on your computer in 1999. Don’t worry I’ll wait…

How about today? Firefox is an easy candidate, as are Open Office, Chrome, Audacity, Eclipse (if you’re a developer), Blender, VLC, and many others. Many netbooks now ship with Linux as the underlying OS. Open Source has gone from a rebel movement to part of the establishment, and when you combine increasing end user adoption with the massive amounts of FLOSS you find on the server side, it can be argued that it is the 800 pound Gorilla now.

As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” When even Microsoft is releasing Open Source code, you know that you’re somewhere between the fight and win stages.

Toward giant Resources

56K modems, 20MB hard drives, 640K of RAM, 2 MHz processors. You don’t have to go far back in time for all of these to represent the state of the art. Now, of course, you would have more than that in a good toaster…

Moore’s Law continues to drive technology innovation at a breakneck pace, and it seems that related technologies like storage capacity and bandwidth are trying to follow the same curve. Consider that AT&T users gripe about the iPhone’s 5GB/month bandwidth cap, a limit that would have taken 10 solid days of transferring to achieve with a dialup connection.

A iPhone has 3,200 times the storage of the first hard drive I ever owned, and the graphics card on Mac Pro has 16,000 times the memory of my first computer. We can now do amazing things in the palm of our hands, things that would have seemed like science fiction in 1999.

The best technologies of the decade

With only few days left before we enter a new year, a lot of new technologies has been explored by us since last decade. The fastest growing technologies is in ICT. Below are the best of technologies so far that we can consider as the best within years period of time;

AJAX

It’s hard to remember what life was like before Asynchronous JavaScript and XML came along, so I’ll prod your memory. It was boring. Web 1.0 consisted of a lot of static web pages, where every mouse click was a round trip to the web server. If you wanted rich content, you had to embed a Java applet in the page, and pray that the client browser supported it.

Without the advent of AJAX, we wouldn’t have Web 2.0, GMail, or most of the other cloud-based web applications. Flash is still popular, but especially with HTML 5 on the way, even functionality that formerly required a RIA like Flash or Silverlight can now be accomplished with AJAX.

Twitter

When they first started, blogs were just what they said, web logs. In other words, a journal of interesting web sites that the author had encountered. These days, blogs are more like platforms for rants, opinions, essays, and anything else on the writer’s mind. Then along came Twitter. Sure, people like to find out what J-Lo had for dinner, but the real power of the 140 character dynamo is that it has brought about a resurgence of real web logging. The most useful tweets consist of a Tiny URL and a little bit of context. Combine that with the use of Twitter to send out real time notices about everything from breaking news to the current specials at the corner restaurant, and it’s easy to see why Twitter has become a dominant player.

Ubiquitous WiFi

I want you to imagine you’re on the road in the mid-90s. You get to your hotel room, and plop your laptop on the table. Then you get out your handy RJ-11 cord, and check to see if the hotel phone has a data jack (most didn’t), or if you’ll have to unplug the phone entirely. Then you’d look up the local number for your ISP, and have your laptop dial it, so you could suck down your e-mail at an anemic 56K.

Now, of course, WiFi is everywhere. You may end up having to pay for it, but fast Internet connectivity is available everywhere from your local McDonalds to your hotel room to an airport terminal. Of course, this is not without its downsides, since unsecured WiFi access points have led to all sorts of security headaches, and using an open access point is a risky proposition unless your antivirus software is up to date, but on the whole, ubiquitous WiFi has made the world a much more connected place.

Phones Get Smarter

In the late 90s, we started to see the first personal digital assistants emerge, but this has been the decade when the PDA and the cell phone got married and had a baby called the smartphone. Palm got the ball rolling with the Treos about the same time that Windows Mobile started appearing on phones, and RIM’s Blackberry put functional phones in the hands of business, but it was Apple that took the ball and ran for the touchdown with the iPhone. You can argue if the droid is better than the 3GS or the Pre, but the original iPhone was the game-changer that showed what a smartphone really could do, including the business model of the App Store,

The next convergence is likely to be with Netbooks, as more and more of the mini-laptops come with 3G service integrated in them, and VoIP services such as Skype continue to eat into both landline and cellular business.

Open Source Goes Mainstream

Aha..this is what I like most. Quick! Name 5 open source pieces of software you might have had on your computer in 1999. Don’t worry I’ll wait…

How about today? Firefox is an easy candidate, as are Open Office, Chrome, Audacity, Eclipse (if you’re a developer), Blender, VLC, and many others. Many netbooks now ship with Linux as the underlying OS. Open Source has gone from a rebel movement to part of the establishment, and when you combine increasing end user adoption with the massive amounts of FLOSS you find on the server side, it can be argued that it is the 800 pound Gorilla now.

As Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” When even Microsoft is releasing Open Source code, you know that you’re somewhere between the fight and win stages.

Toward giant Resources

56K modems, 20MB hard drives, 640K of RAM, 2 MHz processors. You don’t have to go far back in time for all of these to represent the state of the art. Now, of course, you would have more than that in a good toaster…

Moore’s Law continues to drive technology innovation at a breakneck pace, and it seems that related technologies like storage capacity and bandwidth are trying to follow the same curve. Consider that AT&T users gripe about the iPhone’s 5GB/month bandwidth cap, a limit that would have taken 10 solid days of transferring to achieve with a dialup connection.

A iPhone has 3,200 times the storage of the first hard drive I ever owned, and the graphics card on Mac Pro has 16,000 times the memory of my first computer. We can now do amazing things in the palm of our hands, things that would have seemed like science fiction in 1999.