Fashion meets ethics as major retailers flaunt their Fairtrade cotton labels

2008: The Inflexion Year with Positive Outcomes!

Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007

Wired News rundown of the year's 10 most important scientific breakthroughs. 2007 was an amazing year for science. Unlike recent years, there were no high-profile cases of scientific fraud -- none that went uncovered, anyway. Journal publishers took extra care, requiring scientists to duplicate results in an effort to avoid scientific, not to mention public relations, fiascoes. And while those are entertaining, we'll take solid science over Sturm und Drang any day. Here we count down the top 10 scientific discoveries that rocked our Wired world the hardest this year.

Housing finds its new-age nirvana

Chain stores are few and far between on Fore Street, the steep hill that is the main shopping and social focus in the south Devon town of Totnes.
Instead, organic greengrocers vie for attention with vegetarian restaurants, while a disposable coffin adorns the window of a 'green' funeral parlour. And how many high streets can boast more than one reiki spiritual healing centre?
Totnes has just 8,500 residents, but a big reputation for chic Bohemianism and alternative lifestyles that draws in people from across the world: an Indian entrepreneur is starting a tuk-tuk (motorised rickshaw) taxi firm using bio-fuel cabs, and some Americans run an organic clothing shop selling jumpers made from the fleeces of local sheep

Microcredit seen growing despite credit crunch

Microfinance becoming part of a bigger world picture

Microfinance is seeing such keen interest from investors that the sector will likely soar tenfold in the coming years, a new research paper by Deutsche Bank predicts.
The study, the first on such investing ever published by a big financial institution, forecasts retail and institutional investments will hit $20-billion (U.S.) by 2015 from $2-billion currently

The final frontier for solar energy

Scientists are assessing the possibility of embarking on a space engineering project that would eclipse the effort to construct the International Space Station.

The commons, the state and transformative politics

Hilary Wainwright examines how new technology and new forms of organisation are coming together to transform the left and labour movements, political representation and democracy

University is on track with own record label

A YORKSHIRE university is giving its student musicians the chance to be creative about the way their songs are made and sold with the launch of its own record label.
Hull University wants students to be able to exploit new opportunities available on the internet through downloads and the creation of websites where fans can access their favourite songs.Rowan Oliver, the former drummer of dance group Goldfrapp, teaches creative music technology at the university and is helping to launch the record label at its Scarborough campus.Mr Oliver said: "We are encouraging our students to be innovative and to challenge the established practices of the music industry."

Hi-tech tools divide social sites

Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations.
Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch.
The add-ons will allow users to add extras, such as video and music clips, to the personal profiles they maintain. ...

Community Relations & Social Media

Care2.com Launches Political Network for Its 8 Million Members

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - December 11, 2007) - Care2.com, the largest online community of socially conscious-consumers, has launched "Care2 Election08" Channel (http://www.care2.com/politics) for its 8 million members to access extensive information about the issues that matter to them and to provide a forum for Care2's 350 non-profit partners to feature their expertise and policy prescriptions about the challenges America faces. Care2 is the first and only organization to aggregate information on candidates and issues from non-profits and provide editorial through the Care2008 blog.

Wind 'could power all UK homes'

All UK homes could be powered by offshore wind farms by 2020 as part of the fight against climate change, under plans unveiled by John Hutton

Universal Sets Music Free On Imeem

The beleaguered music industry is beginning to show more enthusiasm for free, advertising-supported business models. The latest sign: Universal Music Group has agreed to provide its songs to online social network imeem.

New Fuel Cell Cleans Up Pollution And Produces Electricity

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2007) — Scientists in Pennsylvania are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy. They describe successful tests of a laboratory-scale version of the device in a new study.

Glimpsing Nigeria's digital lifeline

Experiences from the first school in Africa to use the '$100 laptop'

China and the EU could lead the low-carbon economy

An environmental approach to technology- Tang Hai

Introduction- chinadialogue

chinadialogue.net is an independent, non-profit organisation based in London and Beijing. It is owned by the Open Trust, a London based educational charity. It was launched on July 3, 2006. It is an initiative supported by a range of educational charities as well as the UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue led by Defra (Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). All articles published on their site appear in both English & Chinese. A few of their most recent reports linked to after this post

Zero-carbon solution an opportunity for Britain

A report from the Centre for Alternative Technology on reducing dependence on fossil fuels,

Digital Democracy- The Open Rights Group

Becky Hogge at the Guardian's Comment is Free introduces the Open Rights Group

Consumers Eye Social Lending on the Web

Article by Jackie Farwell at the Associated Press on Prosper.com, the U.S. leader in a growing trend known as peer-to-peer lending.The idea behind the sites is that borrowers can find better rates than traditional banks offer, while lenders can earn higher returns than from a savings account or other investment.

Sights and Sounds

Inside the Nigerian school pioneering the '$100 laptop'

Open IT has arrived: US presidential candidates campaigning for it

Honeybees Might Prompt Faster Internet Server Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology is working on the theory that honeybees can give us hints about how to improve the speed and efficiency of Internet servers. Honeybees somehow manage to efficiently collect a lot of nectar with limited resources and no central command. Such swarm intelligence of these amazingly organized bees can also be used to improve the efficiency of Internet servers faced with similar challenges."

The Cooperative Advantage of Doing Business

Senior executives from cooperatives across Asia and the Pacific rim will be joining New Zealand cooperative executives at the Intercontinental Hotel in Wellington from 27-29 November for a symposium on “The Cooperative Advantage of Doing Business”.
Organised by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), sponsored by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) and hosted by the New Zealand Cooperatives Association (NZCA), the object of the symposium is to share the business experience of successful cooperatives so as to enhance the competitiveness of cooperative enterprises in a globalized market.
Read the rest at scoop.co.nz

A virtual climate change conference on Second Life draws attention to the effect on small islands.

Second Life: What's There Is Potential

A couple of reports on the virtual reality system Second Life & its potential applications

The Future of Distributed Power Generation: New technologies, changing economics and the impact of fuel cells

An introduction to distributed generation for hydrogen fuel cells. Jeremy Rifkin in his book 'The Hydrogen Economy' examines the role of Distributed Generation Associations [DGAs] . Unlike major power companies DGAs are locally based & under direct control of the communities involved. With the decline of carbon & the emergence of new & renewable energies DGAs may well play a significant role in future energy production & distribution.

The Hybrid Car: Great Advantages, Great To Use

Green Computing

An article from the Future of Things on how computers are being adapted to run on renewable energy.

Citizen journos turning inwards

A report from Australia's 'The Age' on the rise of participatory media

On the fringes of green technology

A gallery of photos showcasing inventions on the fringes of green technology which one day may become the mainstream.

Fuelmyblog

New blogging community- addyour blog, add widgets & vote in polls

Barcamp Leeds This Saturday [17th November]

BarCamp Leeds is the city's first 'unconference', a event where the folks that attend create the programme of sessions themselves. BarCamps are open, participatory, democratic, 'workshop' events, with sessions on social media, blogging, 3D printing, Augmented Reality interfaces, mobile technology trends, Drupal, games design, co-creation, PR in the digital age, an SEO clinic as well as talks from the founders of BT Bizbox, Plusnet and eDocr.

Getting more from Moore's Law

A series of articles from the BBC on the future of computing including advances in quantum & nano- technology focusing on the work of Gordon Moore.

Democracy the Web 2.0 way

Mitchell Bingemann of CRN Australia on how Web 2.0 may change the face of politics.

Creative Business in the Digital Era

Suw Charman introduces a new research project from the Open Rights Group examining the use of open intellectual property by artists & businesses.

Funds freed up for UK innovation

Red Hat,Sun deal reflects power shift driven by open source

An article from ZDNet on the changing relationship between corporate organizations, in this case Sun MicroSystems & the open source movement. Once seen as rivals, many software companies are now adopting open source practices.

More On the $100 laptop- BBC Report

What's to fear in superhumanism?- Johann Hari

An interesting take on the biotech debate from the 'Independent's Johann Hari

Uruguay buys first '$100 laptops'

A report from the BBC about the launch of the $100 laptop initiative. The governmetn of Uruguay has bought 100,000 of these & hopes to have a further 300,000 by 2009.

Detroit Youth Organize: ‘We Will Be the Change’

Another aspect of the course involves an examination of the justice system in the 21st century & in particular the use of non- state bodies in solving disputes. The following article highlights some of the ways young people in Detroit are doing just this.

From wheat to web: Children of the revolution

Article in Nature Magazine about the latest project of M.S Swaminathan, who transformed methods of Indian agriculture in the 1960s. Now the driving force behind a plan to bring access to information to rural India , in the form of internet kiosks which are to be situated in up to 600,000 villages.

The Semantic Web Goes Mainstream

Technology aids microcredit loans- Rachel Kaufman in the Washington Times

Another article on microcredit explaining how modern methods of communication, such as the internet and mobile phones are being used to expand the availability of such schemes to those who may not have had access to them previously.

Technology, finance combine to fuel Asian green energy hopes

More on Enterprise 2.0

Another article from Dion Hinchcliffe entitled 'Enterprise 2.0- The World of Flatnesses'

The state of Enterprise 2.0- Article by Dion Hinchcliffe @ ZdNet

There's been plenty of discussion over the last year or so about 'Web 2.0' ie the growth in social networking platforms and user generated content. We're now beginning to heart about such things as 'Politics 2.0' , 'Media 2.0' & 'Enterprise 2.0' . The latter term being used to describe the use of interactive systems by existing businesses. Dion Hinchcliffe in this article highlights several reports which suggest that Enterprise 2.0 increases efficiency & productivity & allows for more collective decision making. More on this concept soon.

BBC News- Africa waiting for Net Revolution

'More than a third of Africa's citizens should have access to broadband internet by 2012, a conference of technology leaders is set to hear. '-
Darren Walters- BBC technology editor

The Connect Arica conference in Kigali , Rwanda is another example of how communications media & political development are interconnected. Modern communications methods open up possibliities which a few years ago would have been unimaginable. I'll explore the possibility of technological progress in the developing world being used in conjunction with other solutions such as microcredit in a later post

The Surveillance Society & 10 Ways to thwart Big Brother

One of the issues the Course raises is that of surveillance and the potential abuses of technological development. There's an interesting article in the Observer by 'off grid' expert Nick Rosen on ways to thwart surveillance methods. Some of his suggestions may be seen as going to extreme lengths but nonetheless they raise some interesting points.
For an alternative view see David Brin's 'The Transparent Society' - mentioned in the comments on the Observer site by 'globalgypsy'.

Times Online report on new hydrogen car

Emma Smith in The Times reports on Honda's new hydrogen fuelled car. Click on the headline to read the full article. For more information about hydrogen power & its potential visit Jeremy Rifkin's website in the links section.

Welcome

Welcome to 'Transformations' the blog for the course 'Technology, Culture & Liberty'- Pathways to Social Transformation'. The course is run by Andrew Kirk, founder of Red Sky Media & will be formally launched at the beginning of next year in Galway, Ireland although it is currently available as an e- course. The course provides an analysis of the relationship between technology & social change and provides a range of leading edge tools & ideas for positive action in 6 key areas.


Society at a Crossroads

Into the Digital Age- Challenges & Solutions

The New Economy

Life in a Post Carbon World

Justice in the 21st Century

A Whole New Mind- Seeing the Bigger Picture

Full Course €150
Separate Modules also available €35 Each

The main purpose of this blog will be to provide updates about the course & highlight articles/ features relevant to any of the topics covered