Tibet and the Information War

From EastSouthWestNorth Rebecca Mackinnon of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre in Hong Kong does a great job of looking at how Chinese are increasingly skeptical of Western news agencies’ perceived bias about what has happened in Tibet: Hopefully most of China’s netizens will draw the obvious conclusion: that in the end you shouldn’t trust… Read More »

Power to the Consumer. (Is That All?)

Jan Chipchase, roving Nokia researcher, as ever inspires and provokes with this piece on the psychology of the coffee cup: This Akasaka coffee shop includes a row of accessible power sockets (running a long the edge of the window) primarily to support laptop use – though over the course of an hour a number of… Read More »

Reforestation, Google Earth Style

Here’s a very cool way to mix technology and environmental stuff, via the Google Earth Blog. (Interest declared: It’s part of the NEWtrees project, the brainchild of my publisher and friend Mark Hanusz): The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) offers you the opportunity to buy a tree which will be planted in a rainforest in Sebangau… Read More »

Laptops Aren’t the Problem: The Meetings Are

Some interesting discussions about whether laptops should be allowed in class or meetings. This from Cybernetnews (via Steve Rubel’s shared Google Reader feed): At the start of my last semester of school, I was taken back when I read the syllabus for one of my classes. It read something like: “laptops may not be brought… Read More »

Why Reporters Hate PR Professionals

Peter Shankman recently told the story of how lazy/dumb/thoughtless PR types can be when he forwards a journalist request and gets mostly lame and irrelevant replies. His conclusion: Is this what the agencies are teaching their employees to do? If it is, reporters have every right to hate public relations professionals. We’re not doing our… Read More »