Twiller: A new literary genre via mobile phones?

Writing entire books on mobile phones is not new. Japan’s been doing it for quite a while now and they even have a name for it - keitai shousetsu. 

What’s new is using Twitter to write one, 160 characters at a time. The NY Times recently featured one published author who is actually writing a thriller on Twitter. As a student of old fashioned English literature, I must confess that it’s a bit odd to see writing framed by technology. Unlike the Guttenberg, which set writing free by making it easier (at the time) to publish and disseminate ideas, Twitter in particular emphasizes the latter but not so much the former.  

Twitter and SMS weren’t made to communicate the nuances of language. That their truncated argot has in fact, for a new generation, it’s own nuances (the emergence of emoticons signifying more than otherwise meaningless juxtaposed hyphernation for example) is interesting, but can to me never come close to the beauty of expression from an author who deftly manipulates the language. And it’s not just Shakespeare and the Classics, even your run-of-the-mill Stephen King or Forsyth builds atmosphere through a style impossible to achieve through blocks of 160 characters. 

Or perhaps for a new generation of readers, an impatience with longer, more reflective appreciation of texts (i.e. reading a book as a printed book, through devices like a Kindle or on-screen as e-books / PDFs) will manifest itself in the appreciation of this new kind of literature – a literature for commutes and multi-tasking, easily digested, easily forgotten. 

I have lots of other thoughts about the emergence of what seems to be, either through keitai shousetsu or through thrillers on Twitter, new literary genres, but I’d be interested to know what you think. 

The power of new media or just savvy marketing: Google at party conventions in the US

Google Inc. will help set up a two-story, 8,000 square-foot headquarters for hundreds of bloggers descending on the Democratic convention in Denver next week, and it will offer similar services at the Republican convention in September, as new media gain influence in politics… With its financial support for the “Big Tent” blogger facility at the Democratic convention, Google stands to gain exposure and goodwill from 500 or so bloggers who paid $100 for access to the facility, run by a coalition of bloggers. Google’s software and services will be featured, including a kiosk in the public area of the tent where anyone can post videos on YouTube.

A story on the Wall Street Journal points to Google’s presence at the US Republican and Democratic Party Conventions in 2008. $100 for access to its “tent” isn’t cheap, but I have no doubt that they won’t be filled to the brim. While Google doesn’t report news, it certainly has the potential to shape the news agenda through its control of the vectors through which most of us receive news and information – through the web, through video and blogs and through our mobile phones. Google has a hand in all of these vectors and dominates news searches on the web.

So clearly, it’s presence at these conventions is an interesting move and its showcase of new technologies, including word recognition in videos, have implication farther afield in online video.

The WSJ article ends by quoting Micah Sifry, co-founder of TechPresident.com who says that,

“The paradox is that the events themselves are all news-free, and it’s really mostly just atmospherics; there’s no real news made after the VP picks are announced. On the other hand, it’s a target-rich environment for bloggers.”

It’s a quote that contradicts points enumerated earlier in the article, that suggest news can and is often made when least expected. The proliferations of mobiles into every nook and cranny of the convention is both a boon and bane for those who wish to control news outflows. A gaffe, slur or private remark can in seconds hit the web and be irrevocably disseminated to hundreds, if not thousands of sites, beyond the capacity of any take-down order to censor.

Does all this coverage lead to better coverage? While each blogger registered at each convention will have a devoted following, I still believe that wire services and mainstream media coverage (also on the web and through social networking platforms) will dominate the analysis of the content of both conventions.

What do you think? Will Google’s presence generate more interest in new media coverage of the conventions (and importantly, the issues they raise)?

Seeing the world through photos in 3D – Microsoft’s Photosynth goes public

Microsoft Photosynth

 

Less than a month after I last wrote about Photosynth (and its potential for human rights protection) comes welcomes news that it is now open to the public to upload their own photos to create their “synths”. This sadly does not yet work on Macs. A fairly high end PC is also needed to view the photo models / synths, but the results are amazing. 

One downside of the synths is that you’ll need two or three times more the storage space for all the extra photos needed to render a synth accurately. Most of the synths currently online are mundane and banal, but Microsoft’s own synth showcase the potential and power of Photosynth. 

The BBC first showcased Photosynth a year ago and already has some very impressive synths of well known British landmarks. The BBC’s Click Online programme recently showcased Photosynth in its latest avatar. 

As with Flickr which ranges from the downright dastardly to the sublime, I expect most synths to be a waste of hard drive space and bandwidth. A few however will make this amazing technology worthwhile – esp. to recreate scenes, in 3D, of places one may never see otherwise. It can also be interesting to record the evolution of places, entire cities even, over time, akin to what Google Earth does with layers. Imagine what it would be to see Jaffna from a decade ago and compare it with what it is today. The potential to create detailed, 3D, navigable picture-scapes from publicly available photo sets or those that you upload is, to the best of my knowledge, unique.

Microsoft as the search king of the single largest repository of photographic data?

UPDATE – 26 August 2008

Ars Technica has a review of Photo Synth here.

Deciding which mobile phone to bug and how: The incredible flip side of the growth of mobiles

I use the word incredible in the sense of difficult to believe or extraordinary.

In one of the most revealing and interesting articles I’ve read in a while, the London Review of Books looks into the world of mobile phone surveillance. It begins with the example of www.mapamobile.com in the UK, a freely available service (one of many as a quick Google search reveals) that can be used to track the movements of a mobile phone. A related BBC report by Click Online presenter Spencer Kelly notes how easy it is to circumvent the security protocol associated with a phone that is to be tracked.

While I’ve repeatedly mentioned on this blog that social networking linked to proximity thresholds on mobiles could be a killer app in densely populated areas (megacities), the potential of using the same technology to monitor movements and track people is no longer the domain of science fiction or films like Enemy of the State.

But what’s interesting about the LRB article is not this. It is highlighting the Intelligence Support Systems industry (ISS) industry, growing by leaps and bounds, and its links with and interest in the mobile phone and telecoms companies. And the question is poses is a fascinating one,

…identify targets for LI (that’s ‘lawful intercept’) in the first place: it’s a cinch to bug someone, but how do you help a law enforcement agency decide who to bug?

The way ISS companies go about doing this is worth quoting in full,

To help answer that question, companies like ThorpeGlen (and VASTech and Kommlabs and Aqsacom) sell systems that carry out ‘passive probing’, analysing vast quantities of communications data to detect subjects of potential interest to security services, thereby doing their expensive legwork for them. ThorpeGlen’s VP of sales and marketing showed off one of these tools in a ‘Webinar’ broadcast to the ISS community on 13 May. He used as an example the data from ‘a mobile network we have access to’ – since he chose not to obscure the numbers we know it’s Indonesia-based – and explained that calls from the entire network of 50 million subscribers had been processed, over a period of two weeks, to produce a database of eight billion or so ‘events’. Everyone on a network, he said, is part of a group; most groups talk to other groups, creating a spider’s web of interactions. Of the 50 million subscribers ThorpeGlen processed, 48 million effectively belonged to ‘one large group’: they called one another, or their friends called friends of their friends; this set of people was dismissed. A further 400,000 subscriptions could be attributed to a few large ‘nodes’, with numbers belonging to call centres, shops and information services. The remaining groups ranged in size from two to 142 subscribers. Members of these groups only ever called each other – clear evidence of antisocial behaviour – and, in one extreme case, a group was identified in which all the subscribers only ever called a single number at the centre of the web. This section of the ThorpeGlen presentation ended with one word: ‘WHY??’

I’m hugely ambivalent about this sort of power. The bona fides of all telecoms companies in Sri Lanka, and many other countries with regimes more interested in control and containment than democracy, are already suspect. Governments themselves often conveniently confuse anti-terrorism and the post 9/11 war on terror with legitimate dissent on human rights abuses. Together, the worst of telcos and illiberal regimes have a degree of control over movements and communications that, given our dependence on the web, Internet and mobile communications, is unprecendented in human history. I have always thought that Burma was exceedingly foolish to cut off all communications during and in response to the Saffron Revolution. A more sophisticated regime would have simply tracked all the communications, taking a page from China, and then targetted nodes (indviduals and groups) who were responsible for most of the information generation.

ThorpeGlen’s technology makes this easy to do and I doubt very much that they have ethical guidelines (or frankly even a remote interest in human rights) that will prevent them from selling their product to regimes not known for their support of democracy. The capabilities of the system are astounding – able to track multiple SIMs, handsets and devices and remind me of the Semantic Navigator that I toyed around with in the early days of implementing Groove Virtual Office to support the One Text process in Sri Lanka.

Identifying and profiling targets. Click for larger image.

On the other hand, this technology is here and being further developed. There’s no wishing it away and governments are openly talking about ways to break even themost secure mobile communications channels. Commercial variants are indubitably going to be useful in humanitarian aid and peace related work – to help with location and situational awareness on the ground and complement other technologies such as mobile video, offering real time, immersive updates from the field with little or no user interaction.

A committed interest in combatting terrorism and creating better systems to manage disaster aid work makes it difficult to not get animated by and support these technologies. On the other hand, I am worried about the capabilities of these systems used by governments to hunt what becomes an evolving definition of terrorists and terrorism which soon includes those like myself who are openly critical of the gross abuse of human rights and media freedom by a regime in Sri Lanka hell-bent on a total war to the detriment of democracy.

Many of us are already under surveillance. It’s difficult from where I am to be optimistic about this sort of technology used more as a tool to promote democracy over self-serving wars against terrorism, but I take this as a challenge for all peacebuilders who increasingly use ICTs. Technology after all, is and was never neutral. Our challenge is to use what we have access to pursue our goals, which are strangely yet inextricably entwined with those of the ISS industry.

A grotesque picture – Election violence in Sri Lanka

View Larger Map

Spent the last couple of days updating a map of election violence in Sri Lanka. It’s depressing work. A culture of violence, largely perpetrated by the ruling party (the UPFA), and also demonstrating signs of mindless tit-for-tat attacks by the UNP pervades the Sabaragamuwa and North Central Provinces in the lead up to election day on Saturday.

The Google Map is so packed with markers of incidents that you need to zoom into some places (e.g. Kekirawa, Polonnaruwa or Anuradhapura) to see the degree of violence on the ground. It’s really incredible, especially when reading through the incident reports. Shooting at each other is routine. So is arson, looting and violent assault. Heck, even swords are used.

Positively medieval this.

It was interesting to note the reaction of several journalists after the press conference held by the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence this morning, who came up to me and said that the map helped them to understand better the pervasive nature of violence on the ground. They said it was far easier to understand a map than to go through a detailed report of incidents. Interestingly, they also said that they referred to the detailed reports more than before after looking at the map first, especially to find out more information on places where violence is especially bad.

CMEV was the first elections monitoring body to introduce Google Maps based incident mapping in Sri Lanka and to date the only one to use it. Frankly though, I wish I had introduced the technology for a purpose other than to help citizens understand the nature of the savage brutes they elect to power.

E-Petitions in the UK Parliament

Egovonline reports that the UK Parliament will soon introduce e-Petitions. It’s nice to see a Government get right what some

The Parliament’s Procedure Committee proposal for e-Petitions will now be accepted through the parliamentary website, announced the Government of UK.

“Electronic petitions will be hosted on the parliament’s website for a limited time to enable interested individuals to add their names. Signatories could also choose to receive updates on a petition’s progress,” according to the proposal.

This will ease the procedures for filing petitions.

e-Petitions will require the petitioners to state that they have taken some previous action to resolve their issue.

Speaking on the ocassion, the House of Commons Leader Harriet Harman said, “The government hopes that the House will endorse this way forward, allowing it to take a significant step forward in helping to promote better engagement with the public”.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) started accepting e-Petitions since November 2006.

If the proposal is passed by the Members of Parliament (MPs), then the House of Commons would follow in the footsteps of the PMO.

Quick take – Dell tries to patent “Cloud Computing”

In the WTF news story of the day, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected an application by Dell to trademark the term “cloud computing.”

As noted on eweek.com,

In rejecting Dell’s applications this time, the patent and trademark office wrote that the term “cloud computing” is generic and could apply to any number of services and products that are being developed for IT infrastructures.

What drives companies to such heights of madness?

Mobile phone ringtones for activism and awareness raising

 

Photo courtesy BBC World Service Trust

A post on Lirneasia’s site points an interesting story on the use of a ring tone in India to break down the social taboo of using condoms. Created by the BBC World Service Trust, I can’t say I like the ring tone but perhaps it appeals to an Indian audience. 

You can listen to it and download it to your phone from this website (which is entirely Flash based and slow to load). 

At a broader level, this example highlights the use of ringtones for social and political activism. Though there’s not a single example from Sri Lanka yet, ringtones (and mobiles in general) have been used in political and social activism around the world. As Ethan Zuckerman flags,

When Arroyo found herself embroiled in a corruption scandal involving tape recordings of phone calls to voting commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, one of the tools activists used to spread information was a ringtone. The ringtone featured a snippet of dialog between Arroyo and Garcillano and rapidly became one of the world’s most downloaded ringtones and spawning over a dozen remixed versions.”

An article published on the Boston Globe in April concurs and highlights the use of ringtones in the US,

A Mexican wolf’s eerie howl does double duty as a ringtone and a reminder of habitat destruction. Barack Obama’s campaign offers text message updates, wallpaper, and ringtones with sound bites like “What I do oppose is a dumb war” over a hip-hop beat. A local community support group has turned volunteers with an hour or two between tasks into a network of translators.

As the Mosquito ringtone also demonstrates, it’s interesting (and inevitable) how social, cultural and political differentiation find increasing expression through and in mobile devices. Sadly, many civil society organisations in Sri Lanka haven’t yet fully woken up to the potential of using these innovative new ways to build and strengthen communities of practice on shared goals and ideals, such a democratic governance, peace through peaceful means, sustainable development, human rights and the opposition to all forms of violence.

India to hack into Blackberry communications?

India seems to be taking a page from Sri Lanka’s own misguided notions of national security and telecommunications. Back in May I wrote about the contest between RIM and the Indian Home Ministry to gain access to the encrypted communications conducted via Blackberry’s.

Now there’s news that the Home Ministry may actually hack into RIM’s communications if it isn’t granted access. As Information Week reports,

An Indian government official said his country may use third-party tools to crack the encryption used by Research In Motion’s BlackBerrys if the company doesn’t open up its network. “If they fail to come up with any satisfactory solution, we will invoke other options. We have been approached by other companies with solutions to decrypt the data passed over the BlackBerry network,” said Telecom Minister A Raja during a presentation to the country’s Department of Telecommunications.

Several interesting points arise from this announcement.

RIM hasn’t commented on the possibility of its Blackberry encryption and security being compromised. Since the argument used by the Indian Home Ministry is based on the assumption that Blackberry’s are used by terrorists, RIM’s counter-argument that there are several other (encrypted) mobile e-mail systems, far more widely available that aren’t being targeted for data interception by the Home Ministry is an interesting one. I know of no other case where a government has openly called for third party tools to crack encrypted commercial communications. I guess one can applaud the Indian Government’s openness and just wonder how many other repressive regimes are doing the same thing covertly?

The Sri Lankan Government has also in the past openly called for hackers to disrupt what it perceives to be networks and websites partial to or run by terrorists. There have been allegations by independent web media of Orwellian government surveillence.

If both the Indian and Sri Lankan Government are hell bent on cracking down on Blackberry’s, either for their GPS capabilities or their “secure” communications, it would be pertinent to ask them, inter alia, just how they are addressing the fact that Gmail / Google Apps can now operate over most mobiles using SSL can be used to communicate in much the same way as Blackberry’s or the availability of services like drop.io that can be used to coordinate anything from a birthday party to something more sinister.

In Terrorists also use Google: So what? I end up noting that,

The general argument is that just because the terrorist use technology for their own parochial ends, it does not mean that the technology itself should be banned, or restricted to a wider population. We do not ban printing because the terrorists print their propaganda, and in Sri Lanka, we continue to consume State media in spite of the fact that they are obnoxious mouthpieces of any incumbent government (and in many occasions in the past, used to foment, exacerbate and otherwise promote State terrorism).

The media, not the medium is the problem and as I’ve stated in the past, the best way to address the appropriation of the interweb by miscreants and terrorists is to use the same technology against them and in defense of the principles of liberty, equality and democracy.

Tag Galaxy delivers Flickr photos and tags in 3D

 

The Solar System called Peace (click for larger image)

Tag Galaxy is a Flash based site I came across that delivers Flickr photos in 3D. What makes this site interesting is that it renders related Flickr tags as planets orbiting a central tag. For example, enter “peace” and you get a mini planetary system of Iraq, War, Anti-War, Protest, Rally and, obviously, Bush, circling around it.

Click on any of the “planets” and you are taken to a globe with all the photos tagged with that phrase. While the animation itself is smooth and rendered beautifully, getting the photos from Flickr was a slow process on my pissant SLT broadband connection. 

I’m interested in this kind of application because it experiments with the manner in which we grapple with millions of images on the web. Microsoft’s Photosynth is the ultimate tool to date in this regard, and it’s not even fully launched yet.