Location based information in real time: Help or hindrance?

Looking at this Google Map created by Omar Chatriwala, a web journalist at Al Jazeera, and the plethora of location aware devices plus options to put up geo-referenced information and news on the web in real time, I wondered whether this was helpful or not in times of crisis? Ushahidi's leading the field in addressing …

Google Latitude: Real time location awareness through mobiles

At the time I last wrote about the potential of location aware web / mobile mashups and services, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence disallowed the sale of GPS enabled mobile phones. That seems to have changed in the past month. Airtel and Dialog both sport the Blackberry Bold, which has in built GPS, and Dialog's …

Mobiles to dominate Internet access by 2020?

From Network World, By 2020, mobile phones will be the primary Internet devices for most people in the world, according to a panel of experts, who also predict that Web technologies will probably not lead to increased social tolerance. “The mobile phone – now with significant computing power – [will be] the primary Internet connection …

Obama, the web, the Internet and mobiles

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet. How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics, Claire Cain Miller, NY …

Video interview with Rohan Samarajiva on telecoms in Sri Lanka

A video interview with Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of Lirneasia and former Director General of Sri Lanka Telecom on telecoms regulations, disaster mitigation, preparedness and early warning, mobile phone usage at the B.O.P and a number of other technology related issues pertinent to Sri Lanka.

Capturing violent conflict in Kashmir with mobile phones

The BBC runs a fascinating story today on how young people (who in the story are mostly male) are capturing violent events and processes in Kashmir using their mobile phones.  The example of Kashmir suggests that the prevalence of mobile phones leads to a situation on the ground that mainstream news agencies could not have imagined even …

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 …

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 http://www.mapamobile.com in the UK, a freely available service …

Mobile phone ringtones for activism and awareness raising

  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 …

The future of mobile applications and some other ideas

The Google Android Developers Blog lists the top 50 applications submitted to Round 1 of its developer's challenge. It's a damn impressive list. I was alerted to this from Appropriate IT's excellent post on it, which I fully endorse.  A PDF slideshow of all the apps, with screenshots and mock-ups, is available here.  However, as …