PLAN APPROVED TO SAVE U.S. DIGITAL HISTORY
The Library of Congress announced last week a plan to archive Web content in a manner similar to its preservation of the written word. The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) draws support from past congressional appropriations as well as private funds. The task will not be an easy one -- Google estimates that it currently catalogues some three billion Web pages, and the Library of Congress notes that half of the Web content created in 1998 had disappeared by 1999. "The digital history of this nation is imperiled by the very technology that is used to create it," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Columnist Mike Cassidy is encouraged by the role of the Web and email in organizing and informing political movements. He notes that new communication technologies have connected people with causes as big as the anti-war movement and as small as a one-day fast in protest of corrupt Indian politics. Cassidy is particularly surprised by the smaller movements, like one inspired organized in San Jose last week that called for volunteers to take a day off from eating to support a planned hunger strike by an Indian political activist. This effort, predicts Cassidy, is "something we will all be seeing more of as the world gets smaller and its problems get bigger."

Reporters Without Borders maintains a (French, English and Spanish) website updated several times a day, which seeks to identify attacks on press freedom worldwide. To circumvent censorship, the website presents occasionally articles that have been banned in their country of origin, hosts newspapers that have been closed down in their homeland and serves as a forum where journalists who have been "silenced" by authorities can voice their opinions. This website, which welcomes 35,000 to 45,000 visitors per month, also provides complete reports on cases covered in the press, as well as a daily "barometer" summarising the most recent attacks on press freedom. The website provides information from a NGO that illuminates the openness of countries information systems, and thus may be relevant to interested in both the Knowledge Economy and ICT for Development topics.

Spinning The Web: The Realities of Online Reputation Management"
"'Online reputation management' is reminiscent of the political term "spin control." But the Internet is not traditional media, and opportunities for controlling one's reputation are quite different..."

How Community Managed Software Projects Protect Their Work (PDF)
"Theorists often speculate why open source and free software project contributors give their work away. Although contributors make their work publicly available, they do not forfeit their rights to it. Community managed software projects protect their work by using several legal and normative tactics, which should not be conflated with a disregard for or neglect of intellectual property rights. These tactics allow a project's intellectual property to be publicly and freely available and yet, governable. Exploration of this seemingly contradictory state may provide new insight into governance models for the management of digital intellectual property." By Siobh?n O'Mahony, February, 2003. (PDF, 31 Pages.)

Telework 2003 - 8th International Workshop and Business Conferences on Telework
With the theme "E-Work and the Social-economical Development", this event will take place from August 24 to 27, 2003, in Brazil. It is intended to: Discuss the problem of Telework, particularly in the Iberian-American countries; Transmit scientific information on the practical application language and exchange experiences lived in the specialized area of the Telework; Move and stimulate the production of researches and the relation of cases experienced by the old, actual and new generations of professionals, researchers and teachers, about Telework; Bring together all the professionals that work in the specific, complementary or auxiliary areas of Telework; Encourage use of Telework as a social instrument of the generation of work and income in the society.

UNITeS Involves Online Volunteers Through NetAid
The United Nations Information Technology Service (www.unites.org), an initiative of the UN Volunteers programme, promotes volunteerism as fundamental to successful Information Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) initiatives. UNITeS also has supported more than 150 onsite volunteers in developing countries, applying ICT to a variety of thematic areas (health, education, HIV/AIDS, governance, etc.). The NetAid Online Volunteering service is a free online tool that allows organizations working in or for developing countries to recruit and manage online volunteers to support their efforts. The service is managed by the UN Volunteers programme.

New Film on Sacagawea
Idaho Public Television premieres a new film in March about Sacagawea as part of FESTIVAL 2003 and the bicentennial celebration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. THE JOURNEY OF SACAGAWEA, a one-hour co-production of Idanha Films and IdahoPTV, airs March 10 (Monday) at 8:30 p.m. MT/PT, during the statewide public television system's on air fund-raising campaign.

Swarming robots that can act in concert and mimic the behavior of bees have netted James McLurkin, a 30-year-old doctoral candidate in computer science, the annual Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. McLurkin's robots are programmed to cluster, disperse, follow one another and orbit, similar to the way bees work together in a hive. Equipped with sensors and radio equipment, the robots are capable of detecting environmental stimuli and of contacting the rest of the group, which can then collectively accomplish a preprogrammed task. Such robots could be used, hypothetically, to operate equipment remotely or to monitor and correct environmental hazards. During a class project, McLurkin organized around 20 of the robots to play music together.

THE CALL-ZAPPER WARS
There's a privacy arms race going on, as telemarketers try to defeat the privacy defenses of the TeleZapper, a $40 gadget that deflects unsolicited sales calls by faking the tones of a disconnected number. A company called Castel, which makes automated dialing technology, now says it has developed software that makes calls unzappable. Privacy advocate Robert Bulmash says, "The industry is crowing that 'We don't want to call people that don't want to be called,' and at the same time is calling them." Telemarketing, of course, is a very big business. The FCC says that telemarketers attempt 104 million calls a day to U.S. businesses and consumers, and that telemarketing sales revenue rose from $435 billion in 1990 to $660 billion in 2001.

This one via Sidra (thanks!): Elastic Water

This was kind of amusing: Ex-President Clinton Tapped for Jury Duty.

How many people do you know who could write "President of the United States" under "previous jobs held" and get away with it. :-)

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