Today is the third Blog Action Day.
Though I joined the initiative since the first edition, I would catch this year’s BAD as an opportunity to bring some novelties on IT goes Green.
The themes chosen by BAD, today and in the past years, all intersect in a wider, urgent, critical topic which is sustainable development. ITgG always dealt with IT from that global point of view; this is why every BAD theme always fitted perfectly with this blog’s philosophy; this is why, also, boundaries among topics such as “Environment”, “Poverty”, “Climate Change” seem to be that blurred in ITgG’s posts; and this is why, finally, so many different solutions and theories are presented over this blog, as equally urgent and important.
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Tags: accessibility and knowledge, energy cycles, material cycles, health and safety
www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html
On the outskirts of Ghana’s biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. Peter Klein and a group of graduate journalism students from the University of British Columbia went there as part of a global investigation, to track a shadowy industry that’s causing big problems there and around the world.
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Tags: material cycles, health and safety
www.google.org
blog.google.org
In 2004, when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote to prospective shareholders about their vision for the company, they outlined a commitment to contribute significant resources, including 1% of Google’s equity and profits in some form, as well as employee time, to address some of the world’s most urgent problems. That commitment became Google.org.
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Tags: energy cycles, health and safety
Guardian: Mobile manufacturers agree to universal charger; June 30th, 2009
The days of drawers full of chargers for mobile phones you no longer use could soon be over after manufacturers agreed to use a universal model. Companies including Nokia, Apple, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Texas Instruments, NEC, Qualcomm and Research In Motion have signed up to offer the charger, which will be based on a Micro-USB connector.
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Tags: accessibility and knowledge, energy cycles, material cycles
www.zii.com
www.ziilabs.com
engadget: Creative unveils Zii; January 8th, 2009
Zii is a system-on-a-chip architecture for high-demand media applications, featuring numerous discrete processing elements, officially presented on January the 8th, 2009. Creative Technology Ltd. announced the formation of ZiiLABS, with the combination of 3DLABS and resources drawn from the largest product group in Creative, the “Personal Digital Entertainment” group. Engadget reports: “If, despite our warning, you were still hoping that the Zii was some sort of new form factor media player or maybe even a futuristic computer that could morph and change shape as needed, prepare to be a bit disappointed”. That being said, the concept itself is still intriguing.
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Tags: energy cycles, material cycles
academicearth.org
academicearth.org/about
Academic Earth is an organization founded by Richard Ludlow, with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education. As more and more high quality educational content becomes available online for free, what are the real barriers to achieving a world class education? Academic Earth’s team is working to identify these barriers and find innovative ways to use technology to increase the ease of learning.
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A meme is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. Richard Dawkins first introduced the word in “The Selfish Gene” (1976) to discuss evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.
The following are two videos dealing with memetics, which also present considerations about informatics, technology and human development.
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Tags: accessibility and knowledge
