Technology News

Tweeting Around Egypt’s Web Blackout: Meet John Scott-Railton

by Lee Doren on February 4, 2011 · 1 comment

in Tech & Telecom

Recently, the Egyptian government blocked Egyptians’ access to the Internet. However, it couldn’t block the Internet itself. Consequently, John Scott-Railton figured out a way to transmit the voices of Egyptian protesters online.

John reached out to friends in Egypt by telephone, gathered updates, and posted them to his Twitter account @Jan25voices. Amazingly, in one week he earned 7,000+ followers and his audio clips have been played more than 3.5 million times.

Reason.tv filmed an interesting video on how this process works. See the video below.

Human Achievement of the Day: Averting Armageddon

by Michelle Minton on March 9, 2010 · 1 comment

in Odds & Ends

No, I’m not talking about a bad Bruce Willis movie (science has yet to come up with a way to prevent box office boredom bombs). I’m talking about a device that scientists came up with this past September that will have the ability to redirect an asteroid if it’s on a collision course with Earth.

In the event that astronomers discover an asteroid likely to collide with earth (so long as we have a 20 year head start) scientists will launch the craft. It will then slowly pull the deadly planetoid out of line with our home world.

Researchers’ latest invention is designed with the goal of attracting asteroids towards itself using a small gravitation force on the cosmic object. Then the spacecraft would guide the asteroid away from the planet. Four low-energy ion thrusters would be used to help the spacecraft adjust its arrangement relative to the asteroid. The latter’s gravitational pull would be quite enough to move the cosmic object into a less dangerous orbit.

Why it is important: While the likelihood of a large asteroid colliding with the Earth is slim, it isn’t impossible. It would only take one of the many near-earth objects to cause serious damage.

The “gravity tractor” spacecraft will be able to divert an asteroid of up to 430 yards (393 meters) in diameter. Scientists consider that if the asteroid of such size hits the planet, the impact would discharge 100,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War.

While 393 meters is no Texas (at 1400 kilometers across there is no asteroid in our solar system that large; the largest being just 900 kilometers wide) presumably, the larger the asteroid the more likely it is that astronomers will spot it early and this tractor can have more time to affect its path.  So, stop your worrying about the doomsday rock and give a cheer for a scientific advancement that could end up saving the lives of every human being on the planet!

Now, if they could just come up with a device to prevent bad sci-fi movies from hitting the box office…Your move Freeman

Superman picture via Newsarama.com
President Freeman picture via Pollsb.com

Human Achievement of the Day: Liquid Condoms

by Michelle Minton on March 8, 2010 · 1 comment

in Odds & Ends

To continue our daily series of human achievement highlighting, today’s post focuses on what could be the next great revolution in sexual health; the liquid condom.

In the US and much of the developed world sex is funny. And at first a new kind of condom might seem like a trivial advancement, especially considering the many diseases and conditions science has yet to address. However, the impact of this new innovation should not me overlooked. Since the dawn of human civilization pregnancy, childbearing, and sexually transmitted diseases have had been major contributing factors in the quality of life for human populations–especially the females in these populations. Preventing unwanted pregnancy and disease has, until now, largely been in the hands of men. This new technology may change that.

A group of researchers from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City have invented a vaginal liquid condom that is effective as both a contraceptive and in preventing the transmission of sexual disease including HIV, papilloma virus (HPV), chlamydia, and others.  What makes this “molecular condom” so revolutionary is the fact that it puts women in the driver’s seat. The liquid gel can be inserted into the vagina hours before intercourse and becomes a partial solid when it comes into contact with semen. The ramifications of this new device, which they hope to release in the next 5 years, will be huge.

March is Women’s History month: While I’m generally not a fan of damning or celebrating any grouping of individuals, I will point out that as a group the history of the female sex is one of marginalization, abuse, and disenfranchisement. To a large degree those abuses and lack basic freedoms persist in many cultures. In many countries women simply have no ownership of their lives or bodies–a fundamental principle to individual liberty. In addition to the benefits this liquid condom will provide to couples in developed countries, the new form of birth control and disease prevention has the potential to aid in the liberation and improve conditions of women in societies where their bodies aren’t their own and the risks are great.

Unfortunately for women in the countries with some of the highest rates of STD infection and least access to care, the decisions about sex are not often up to them. As this new technology becomes more available though, all of that may change.

Their goal was to protect women in countries with a high level of HIV-positive people by offering them a rather inexpensive way of contraception and protection when their partners do not wear a condom.

“We did it to develop technologies that can enable women to protect themselves against HIV without the approval of their partner,” says Kiser.

Not to be over-dramatic, but women around the world celebrating Women’s History Month should cheer the researchers behind this condom. They should credit human innovation and technology for helping women around the world take greater ownership of their bodies and their first steps toward freedom.

We’re not #1 and it’s okay

by Michelle Minton on February 18, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Odds & Ends, Tech & Telecom

Internet access is not a right. It is a privilege; one that we pay for. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, while not explicitly demanding high-speed Internet access for all Americans did tip-toe toward that ledge in recent comments, in which he noted the importance of high-speed broadband Internet in economic development.

Pointing out that the United States ranks far behind several other nations in Internet speeds, Genachowski revealed a major goal outlined in the broadband plan–to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 million households by 2020. He noted that other countries have already benefited economically from national broadband, citing one example in China.

“Look at Shenzhen, China,” he said in his speech. “In the 1980s, it was a fishing center. Today, it is a city of 12 million that produces about 25 percent of the world’s cell phones.”

Sure, America is in a tight spot right now and economically speaking we might be experience less growth than China, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing and anyway do we really want to emulate China? Do we want the government to filter out websites it doesn’t like and throw bloggers in jail for talking about things it doesn’t want us to discuss? Do we want to erode property rights and contract law?

Genachowski seems to believe that Internet access is a root cause of prosperity, employment, and economic growth. While high-speed Internet access certainly improves the efficiency of job searches, information gathering, and advertising, the reason Internet technology has developed so quickly, become ingrained in our society, and dropped precipitously in price is because of competition and the freedom to experiment. Internet technology has become more available and cheaper precisely because it is not free.  The money consumers pour into the latest technological advances drives competition, innovation, and cost cutting. Simply demanding more access to broadband may result in  more folks having the Internet, but it will likely also bring innovation to a crawl or a grinding halt. As I have noted in previous posts the way to increase access to high-speed Internet it not through regulation and government intervention, but rather by protecting the rights of tech companies and allowing them the freedom to develop and market their products as they choose.

picture via China Blawg

Tweeting for Liberty

by Michelle Minton on December 3, 2009

in Odds & Ends

Let’s face it, in this era, liberty-minded folk are in the minority (as if there was a time we were the majority). However, just because we aren’t the dominate voice in congress, the white house, or popular media, doesn’t mean that freedom has to remain voiceless or facebook-less. While these are the days of Obamanomics, bailouts, tax-and-spend, they are also the days of the social network (twitter, facebook, digg, myspace, etc). As recent events (like the Tehran election and the Tea Party phenomenon) have shown, web technologies increasingly inform public thought, and have to potential to displacing traditional media. So, even though times may seem dismal for liberty-minded organizations, the current state of new media offers us an opportunity to reach out and communicate with potential supporters like never before.  Twitter, one of the newest new media platforms available, is proving to be particularly useful.  Below are a few twitter-usage tips I picked up at a recent luncheon meeting held at the Cato Institute, featuring former CEI employee Cord Blomquist, now at the Mercatus Center.

Much of Cord’s presentation was based on this blog he wrote for his personal website: http://cordblomquist.com/2009/11/10/how-to-dominate-twitter/

Basic twitter principles:

The more people you follow, the more followers you are likely to have

The more you tweet the more followers you’re likely to have

Tweeting at intervals separated by at least 90 minutes is preferable to tweeting several times in a short span of time. The idea is to consistently remain in someone’s peripheral consciousness, to remind them you are there, not to annoy them by flooding their twitter feed (the collective “tweets” of everyone they follow) once a day or once a week.

Some twitter tools:

HootSuite is a free platform for using twitter: This service allows us to schedule tweets, enter in an RSS feed, so new blog posts and other new publications are posted automatically along with a shortened URL link to the post, and very importantly the URL shortening function also allows for click-through tracking unlike other platforms so you can know at what rate people are clicking on links in your tweets.

Twittermass: allows you to automatically follow people based on words they use in their tweets, limit follows to people using those words in your geographical area, and follow people who follow another person (such as followers of Catoinstitute or Reasonmag).

Socialoomph: is sort of like the free version of twittermass, which allows you to bulk follow people or bulk unfollow

If you want to keep up with the latest news and development in social media online check out: Mashable, and ReadWriteWeb

Other interesting twitter tools we discussed included the twitter search widget which allows you to create a “widget” code that you can add to a website which will scroll the tweets of people talking about the terms you specify (for example, cei.org).

Twittercounter was also discussed as a useful way to collect statistics on how you are utilizing your twitter account over time.

TwitterKarma: Is a tool I have personally found pretty useful for bulk following or unfollowing people.

Lists: Lists are very helpful when trying to connect with like-minded people or for finding potential new followers. For example TLOT (Top Libertarians on Twitter) will enable you to see who the most active “tweeters” are in your particular field.

Best of luck to all you libertweeters out there and don’t forget to connect with CEI and me on twitter!

Connect with CEI http://twitter.com/CEIdotorg

Connect with Me: http://twitter.com/michelleminton

LibertyWeek 33: Drinking Our Way to Economic Health

by Richard Morrison on March 10, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Welcome to Episode 33 of the LibertyWeek podcast, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and technical producer (and this week’s special guest) Ryan Young. After bidding our friend Thor Halvorssen a very happy birthday, we get a fresh recap from Ryan Young on the events of the Free State Project’s recent Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire (photos). Google’s CEO spurns Twitter (transcript via TechCrunch) in Technology News, John McCain and Richard Shelby say that the government should end the bailouts and let poorly-managed banks go bankrupt, and brewers pin their hopes on robust St. Patrick’s Day sales in this week’s edition of Beer News. Next, we go abroad for Scandal Watch where the Chinese government is cracking down on sub-optimal milk quality and finally back home to America for Olympic News, where the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee is calling it quits.

The honor of Tweet of the Week™ goes to dan_hayes of Reason.tv!