Bryn's blog » ABC

Queensland Floods and the Web

Bryn — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:53:17 +0000

Floods have devastated Queensland and other parts of Australia. The area underwater is greater than France and Germany. At times like these I am always amazed at the great and positive ways how Web 2.0 technologies are used; whether social networking to match people needing accommodation with people who are offering space to stay or how people have used the twitter hash tags such as #qldfloods to follow breaking news.

NearMap, an Australian based map/aerial photography company, was remarkable quite in updating their site with very recent aerial photography showing the extent floods. The ABC, who regularly make excellent use of the web, have used the NearMap images before and after the flooding to created an excellent infographics of the devastation.

I also think it is worth noting that the inactive infographics are made using HTML and JavaScript not Flash.

Broadband for Arnhem Land

Bryn — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:35:36 +0000

From the ABC’s 7:30 report, a good news story about the Broadband Revolution coming to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. A fibre optic cable has be laid into Arnhem Land. This is great story in so many ways:

The technical hurdles that needed to be over come in laying cable in a harsh environment including under a crocodile infected river.
The positive social impact for education and health resulting from broadband.
How culturally sensitively the whole project was managed, with traditional owners from the local Aboriginal communities being consulted and involved in the project.

Telecom revolution for Arnhem Land (video from abc.net.au)

ABC (au) Radio National launches Pool

Bryn — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:51:36 +0000

via Boing Boing

ABC Radio National has launched Pool:

It’s a place to share your creative work with the Pool community and ABC producers – upload music, photos, videos, documentaries, interviews, animations and more. It’s a collaborative space where audiences become makers. – About Pool

One aspect of Pool that got my attention is the use of Creative Commons licences. It is great to see the ABC exposing Creative Commons, RSS feeds and the like to their audience. The, government funded, ABC and particular Radio National and Triple J, have often been early to embrace aspects of new media. Radio National were one of the first old media organisations to offer podcasts of their programs.

I, an Australian, discovered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Pool via post on Boing Boing, a North American blog, by Cory Doctorow, who lives in the UK. The web is truely global medium.

Negroponte on why OLPC needed to be non-profit

Bryn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:42:06 +0000

The Science Show (Radio National, ABC Australia) recently broadcast Nicholas Negroponte’s address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston. He spoke about the OLPC, One Laptop Per Child, being interested in both education and technology I have followed the OLPC project for some time, but this talk made me appreciate the project more from an educational and social perceptive rather than just a technological one. In my view then most important point of the whole talks concerned the economics of OLCP.

Negroponte:

“Then the biggest decision in retrospect that we made was to do it as a non-profit and everybody advised me the opposite.”

I see this as an example of how in a purely capitalist system some great things will never eventuate, I can see parallels with FLOSS here. Negroponte also speaks of how on the OLPC they used the rapid pace of technology advancement not to make a product with more feature but one at a lower price.

A transcript and mp3 (for a limited time) of the talk are available from the Science Show site, I highly recommend reading/listening. It is people who work on things like OLPC who change the world for the better.

.. and now it is time to turn out attention to the Senate

Bryn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:31:25 +0000

The ALP has a majority in the new House of Representatives, so Kevin Rudd is the new PM of Australia, but what about the Australia’s upper house, the Senate. For people on the left of Australian politics the Senate results are not nearly as good as the House of Representatives results.

The ABC is feeding the progressive Senate numbers into Antony Green’s Senate Calculator. Based on the calculations the numbers after Jul ’08 will be:

	ALP	Lib/Nat	Greens	Other
NSW	3	3	0	0
Vic	3	3	0	0
QLD	3	3	0	0
SA	2	2	1	1#
WA	2	3	1	0
Tas	3	2	1	0
ACT	1	1	0	0
NT	1	1	0	0
Total	18	18	3	1
cont.	14	19	2	1*
after Jul ’08	32	37	5	2

# Nick Xenophon  * Family First

To get legislation passed the Senate the Rudd government will require the support of all the Greens, Nick Xenophon and Family First (or a Lib/Nat Senator must cross the floor, may be Barnaby Joyce)

Could we see Double Dissolutions?

ABC (au) uses Google Earth to show APEC Exclusion Zone

Bryn — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 09:42:17 +0000

ABC (Australia) is using Google Earth and Maps to show the APEC Exclusion Zone. The Australian national broadcaster is offering a kmz file showing the CBD Exclusion Zone on their web site.

http://abc.net.au/kmz/apec.kmz

The same information is available using Google Map on their web site (although not in the 3D of Google Earth)

What a great use of Web 2.0 technologies.