Rikomatic

1 million Flip video cameras to be given to non-profits around the world

Pure Digital Technologies has announced at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting today that they plan on giving away 1 million of their ultracompact Flip videocameras to non-profits and NGOs around the world to assist their work.  “We believe video can help change the world,” said Jonathan Kaplan, Chairperson and CEO of Pure Digital Technologies in their press release. “Non-profit organizations do incredible everyday work that the public rarely sees. Imagine the impact that video would make if every on-the-ground staff member or volunteer had both a camcorder and the ability to broadcast their message to the world.”

Sounds like a really incredible offer that I hope gets implemented soon.  It would be great if the human rights video project WITNESS could get a few thousand of these over to human rights observers and defenders that they work with.  And I could see my friends at Global Kids using these to teach video production to kids in the inner city. Really there are a 1,001 cool ideas for how these dead simple video cameras might help various NGO and non-profit missions.

I was already planning on getting the sweet Flip Ultra, but now I have another reason to give them my businesss.

Head to www.flipvideospotlight.com to sign-up for updates on this initiative. The complete press release follows...

Buy 2 OLPC laptops -- 1 for you + 1 for a poor kid

The One Laptop Per Child folks are offering a very special "twofer."  If you buy two of their incredibly cute "XO laptops" for $400, one of them goes to you (or your kid) and the other to a child in the developing world.  I would love to have one of these adorable little machines.  Talk about a conversation starter!  Reminds me so much of my old Apple eMate, which still kind of works.

Head to http://www.xogiving.org to sign up for this special offer.

ISP ad from the non-Net Neutral future

Cool internet researcher dude Jeremy Husinger sent around a link to this brilliant fake ad for what our internet access rates might look like in a world without Net Neutrality public policy. The most effective illustration of what is at stake I've seen yet.

Taken from Reddit.com.  NOTE: No licensing or authorship information was available at time of posting.  I'll be happy to take this down or credit the creator if she steps forward.

MTV launches beta version of "think" youth activism site

I got an invite to join the beta version of MTV's new youth activism site "think" yesterday. Looks like an another way to facilitate activist social networking, group blogging, calls for action, volunteer matchmaking, and awareness-raising about various issues.  Non-profit organizations can use "think" to try and reach out to a younger demographic for their work.  Teachers can integrate "think" into social studies and volunteer programs at their schools.

The "think" categories for action are interesting: Discrimination, Environment, Politics, Drugs & Alcohol Abuse, Faith & Spirituality, Health & Self, Education, Human Rights, Relationships & Sex, War & Peace, Crime & Violence, Poverty & Disease.  I'm not sure how I feel about poverty and disease being put together as the same category.  Is poverty a disease?

An interesting tool on "think" is a social reward "badge" system. "Badges" can be redeemed for tangible rewards like invites to celebrity events and video cameras and intangible rewards like shiny stars next to your profile on the site.  How do you get "badges"?

Almost every Think action has an equal and opposite Think reaction. Upload a video; get a badge. Complete your profile; get a badge. Pass a quiz; get a badge. Attract enough eyeballs with your blog; get a badge. Get the picture? And while some badges will be much harder to get than others, it couldn't be easier to get started. So go ahead. Make something happen.

I will be interested to see how think's social reward "badge" program works, or doesn't.  Introducing a game-like system into an activist site might be a really great way to get people to "play" and invest in your site.  Or it might lead to spoilers trying to game the system to get that videocamera.

Free Press Action Network seeks media activist bloggers

The media reform group Free Press announces the launch of a new "Action Network" community blog service.  They invite bloggers and citizen journalists to join them in chronicling how people in their communities are working toward more democratic, just media. Registered users can post to their own blog, comment on other posts, rate, and share posts with their own networks.

Looks like an interesting way to connect the dots between various media reform and media justice efforts going on around the United States, including folks working on community broadband, low power FM, Net Neutrality and media ownership issues. Lots of interesting posts already up there, so media activists should keep an eye on the Action Network.

"Ruckus Nation" offering $300K to get kids off their fat asses

Remember all those news stories about how schools were installing "Dance Dance Revolution" machines in their rec rooms because it got their students exercising?  Or blog entries about a guy who lost a bunch of weight playing WII sports? Here's a new competition to come up with the next DDR that gets kids butts in gear.

The non-profit group HopeLab is sponsoring an online contest for the best idea to get young people ages 11-14 exercising using technology:

Ruckus Nation challenges you to imagine a new product for kids that’s fun and cool enough to make them want to get up and move around. HopeLab, the nonprofit organization sponsoring Ruckus Nation, will support the development, testing and distribution of products based on the best ideas. You read that right – your idea could become a real product that gets kids moving.  In addition, we’re offering great prizes for  the best ideas... The competition is open to people of all ages, shapes, sizes and colors. Whether you’re a college student in Cape Town, a soccer coach in Savannah, a grandparent in Guntur, an engineer in Nanjing, or a kid in Ketchikan, we’re betting you have a product idea that could make a difference.    

I think the guy who connected a treadmill to the Second Life interface should definitely enter.

Read the competition  rules for details on entering.  Deadline for entries is November 20, 2007.

New APC book argues that WSIS was costly and irrelevant

Closing Ceremony of WSIS Summit in Tunis, 2005

My friends at the Association for Progressive Communications have published a new book on the lessons learned from the UN World Summit on the Information Society, particularly for developing countries and civil society organizations/NGOs.  Entitled, Whose Summit, Whose Information Society, the book is available as a free PDF from APC.  From what I have read so far, the author David Souter does an amazing job synthesizing a wide range of views and perspectives gathered from what must have been hundreds of hours of conversations and email correspondence with developing country and NGO delegations to the WSIS. 

Having spent 2002-2005 working quite intensely on WSIS issues, I have to say his overall assessment is sobering.  David concludes that, while the key decisions of the WSIS related to ICT infrastructure financing and internet governance were important and necessary, these developments were likely to have happened in the medium term anyway given technical and political shifts already happening. And perhaps these changes could have been achieved with much less cost of time, energy and painful debates through other mechanisms.

The official APC announcement follows...

Gather.com creates "People's Press Corps" to cover 2008 Elections

The "social media site for adults" Gather.com announces that they are launching a search for six bloggers to be their "People's Press Corps" to cover the 2008 US elections.  The winning bloggers (2 Dems, 2 Reps, and 2 Independents) will report on the 2008   presidential election, receiving "exclusive access to candidates, experts, and events." The blogger team will enjoy an all-expense-paid three-day trip to report directly from their assigned primary election as Gather’s official media representative. Blogger hopefuls should submit an essay or video before October 10 to be in the running. 

I've personally never heard of Gather.com prior to this announcement. But looks like an interesting site.

See the full announcement after the jump, or go to http://election08.gather.com...

Justice Department poo-poo's Net Neutrality, tells telecoms to start charging for tiered Net access

Yahoo News is reporting that the Justice Department has given approval for telephone and cable companies to start charging different rates to customers based on the particular websites and services they visit. Internet service providers in the US have been seeking to change their fee and technical structure so that they can change customers more for, say, accessing YouTube versus the CBS online videos or Skype internet phone versus Verizon phone services. 

This is in direct opposition to the principle of "Net Neutrality" -- that all net traffic be treated equally regardless of source or application -- which internet activists like the Save the Internet Coalition have maintained is a core principle that has led to the rapid growth of the internet.

According to the story, the DOJ commented that providing different levels of service is "common, efficient and could satisfy consumers." As an example, it cited that the post office charging customers different rates for package delivery, from bulk mail to overnight delivery.

This seems to me to be a bad analogy. The correct analogy is if the US Postal Service charged you different rates for getting packages from Amazon versus your mother, or letters to your best friend versus letters to your local newspaper editor.  Privileging packets means that the destination and application of your internet usage suddenly becomes yet another charge in our already over-charged internet access fees, compared to other countries. And that's just bad news all around, for the consumer, for new innovators and businesses, and for the future of the net.

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Update 9/6/07, 6PM: Moveon.org has started a new petition that you can sign to express your outrage.

Cyrus Huffines leading online community program at Interfaith Youth Core

Congrats to my friend Cyrus Huffines (RL: Bryan Campen) for getting recently hired as Online Community Coordinator for the Interfaith Youth Core. About the Core:

There are millions of religious young people in the world interacting with greater frequency. That interaction tends either toward conflict or cooperation. Where so many of these interactions tend towards conflict, the Interfaith Youth Core aims to introduce a new relationship, one that is about mutual respect and religious pluralism. Instead of focusing a dialogue on political or theological differences, we build relationships on the values that we share, such as hospitality and caring for the Earth, and how we can live out those values together to contribute to the betterment of our community.

The Interfaith Youth Core is creating these relationships across the world by inspiring, networking, and resourcing young people, who are the leaders of this movement. We provide young people and the institutions that support them with leadership training, project resources and a connection to a broader movement.

Sounds like a really great cause getting a very creative organizer.