New Media Awards 2008

Weblog Archive - April 2007

MPs, money and websites: a good mix?

Come and join the New Statesman and New Media Awards crew in the rather plush surroundings of Middle Temple to discuss: “Will MPs use their Communications Allowance effectively?”

Members of Parliament have voted to give themselves £10,000 each a year to spend on things like websites to boost "public understanding" of Parliament; but how should this be spent and can MPs be trusted to spend this money wisely?

Quite ...

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Hanging chads go virtual

Marrying democracy to technology, well you'd expect a few teething troubles...

The brave new world of the marrying-up of government, politics and technology continues to have a few teething troubles. A representative of electoral administrators has warned that councils could struggle to count votes in next month's elections because of problems with untried electoral software.

A lack of proper testing means software houses have had to come up with "bolt on" systems for tracking postal votes, which makes them open ...

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Free software, free speech

An pro-open source protester is arrested during a Bill Gates speech in China

It's interesting that Karoshi, a project to develop a free open source server solution for schools has been nominated in these awards. Increasingly, socially minded software developers are ganging together to provide such solutions, especially for the developing world where buying a copy of Windows Vista would bankrupt the average family or even small business.

The issue was recently highlighted when a protester calling for free computer software ...

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The joys of Geocaching

Greg Marler introduces us to the joys of getting out and about with a GPS receiver

GPS, or Global Positioning System, is the technology behind 'SatNav' that we are now familiar with seeing - not only directing dirt-free urban 4x4s to the nearest car wash but also in modest family cars guiding owners to a new holiday destination or the fastest route to granny's house.

GPS works with the 24 satellites orbiting this globe(Earth), each constantly sending out electronic messages. ...

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Finding support for your great idea(s)

The sociable existence of the techie type

As mentioned in my previous post, this year we’ve launched a new award category, the Young Innovator Award. But what's out there for innovators over 25 (other than all the other NMA categories, of course)?

Events and conferences

Most nights of the week in London and in other large cities across the UK there are technology events taking place that are great for finding out the latest thinking and ...

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£500 to be won!

Come on! Nominate the geek in your life!

It's surprising, but very few people have noticed that this year that there is £500 to be won within one of the award categories.

Yep!

There is £500 just waiting to be given to a Young Innovator out there. We thought we’d be inundated with entries but so far it looks like James Wheare is going to have all the cash unless some more people get nominated.

...

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Zooming in on Darfur

Gruesome images of the destruction in Darfur are now clearly visible on Google Earth

Perhaps one day technology will teach us how not to commit terrible evil. For now, though, we'll have to make do with initiatives that simply map in horrendous detail the kinds of things that could happen.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is joining with Google to literally map the genocide currently occuring in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Crisis in Darfur is a project enabling 200 million ...

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Accessibility makes sense

Is your website fully accessible to everyone?

What happens when there is a terrorist attack or a natural disaster? These days, some people might immediately turn to their 24-hour rolling news channels on television, but many of us would naturally look to the Internet.

However, if you were looking for instructions on how to deal with the disaster, you might find yourself at a loss. Further, what if you had a disability that made some websites ...

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Powerful online government watchdogs

Monitoring what the government is up to is being made easier by several websites

The White House Says and The Government Says are two fantastic services put together by Sam Smith with help from MySociety and Democracy.org.uk. These enable you to search a vast mine of information that spews forth from governments.

Now the collective has launched spinDifferent.com, which makes it possible to compare what the leaderships of US and UK are saying on specific topics, as well ...

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Local social capital heading online?

'These days the buzz is all about flipping online interactions into real-world meetings'

Ever since the Internet entered the social consciousness there have been countless attempts to create online communities. The Well, for instance was an early San Francisco-based community started in 1985 which even inspired a few 'cyber universe' novels.

But these days the buzz is all about flipping online interactions into real-world meetings. Thus Meetup.com, Upcoming.com promote "meat space" (as the geeks call it) networking.

But ...

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