Here’s how “Telecom Australia” (now Telstra) in 1992 envisioned the broadband revolution of far-future 1996. Have you watched this, Senator Conroy? Why doesn’t my laptop make those noises?
Hacking the human heart, literally
Excellent. It’s possible to wirelessly hack into a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker and re-program it to shut down or deliver fatal jolts of electricity. Hat-tip to Memex 1.1.
Social media in Saudi Arabia — for women!
Social media’s pink-toned guru, as I called her, Laurel Papworth is currently in Saudi Arabia helping launch an online social network for Arab women. And she’s nervous. Her first post from Jeddah is fascinating. “No matter how naive I may be in some things, no waaaaaay can I pretend this community is just another oh, dating site, or tv show, social network. It’s a game changer, a rule breaker. Newsflash: social media is disruptive!”
Australia 2020 line-up change
Line-up change for Australia 2020: The co-chair of the panel on indigenous issues, Dr Kelvin Kong, has withdrawn due to family health concerns. He has been replaced by historian Dr Jackie Huggins, a woman of the Bidjara / Birri-Gubba Juru peoples.
The $400 Billion Gift
Catching up on news from earlier this week, I’m astounded to read the real reason the US stock market rallied: “The US Taxpayers just lent the Biggest Banks and Hedge Funds in New York $400 Billion in exchange for ‘mark to market valued’ sub prime mortgage securities that are probably nearly worthless (being so far down on the claims chart in a bankruptcy). This is a ‘silent bailout’ of the Republican’s biggest contributors that is going to be much more expensive than the S&L Rescue package of the early 90s. At least Bush Sr proposed the S&L bailout in the sunlight. Bush Jr, Paulson and the Fed are doing the bailout without asking our permission. What does ‘pork barrel’ John McCain think of this corporate welfare?”
Link digests: an experiment
As you can see, I’m running another experiment: recording the websites I find in del.icio.us and publishing a daily collection here. Just as with the daily Twitter updates, though, the list of random pieces changes the character of the site. And the experimental system provided by del.icio.us doesn’t let me format the posts — the most annoying aspects for me being the last of capital-L in the headline and not being able to format the entries. I may take up Brad Kellet‘s offer to use his script instead.