Die Website Africars wurde um einige Fotogalerien erweitert!

...besonders zu empfehlen sind:

• Mauritius- und Madagaskar-Galerien (von Sebastian Wendlandt)
• Eritrea- und Äthiopien-Galerien (von Magnus Treiber)
• Marokko-Galerien (von Gabriel Klaeger)

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Bruce Sterling -- who will speak at our University tonight -- received the above picture from William Gibson -- the man who invented the word 'cyberspace' -- and posted it at his weblog: " Wow, a custom-detailed, one of a kind, post-consumer-altered MP5!" Nitpick: a Heckler&Koch MP5k. Ain't that a fine example of aesthetic technology adaption? Envision an exhibition in an ethnological museum, showing weapons like the above one -- and of course the gold-plated AK-47s from Iraq's ex-elite. And now envision the size and kind of crowd that would flock into an exhibition like that ;-) Seriously: Those indeed are examples of the acculturation, or even cultural appropriation, of industrial artefacts by modifying them; and therfore an issue of sociocultural anthropology. Both, choice of the weapons, and the kind of modification are culturally informed. Decoration of weapons with ornaments is nothing special per se -- it is done especially with hand guns like pistols and revolvers or hunting rifles. The two examples in the pictures are peculiar, because we deal here with fully automatic weaponry, which is designed for combat, and combat only -- that's the context of weapons like that.

["Present by his Excellency Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq" -- tnx to K.B. for the translation]
AK-47 via smugmug

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Manila, die Hauptstadt der Philippinen, nennt sich stolz "die SMS-Hauptstadt der Welt". In Studien wird geschätzt, dass im ganzen Land täglich 150 Millionen Text-Botschaften verschickt werden, was die Philippinen zum Land mit der höchsten Zahl von SMS-Nachrichten pro Kopf und pro Tag machen würde. [weiter bei telepolis]

in diesem Zusammenhang ist vielleicht auch die Studie von Motorola mit dem Titel "on the mobile - the effects of mobile telephones on social and individual life" von Dr Sadie Plant interessant.

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Africars (See our older story) has been updated big time! Especially as Africars now features the new Sudan galleries. Pictures were provided by our students who carried out the 'Sudan-Lehrforschung' just a year ago.

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I stumbled across this short article about ethnographic methods used for market research issues from Jennifer McFarland published in the Marketing subcategory of Harward Business School "Working Knowledge for Business Leaders" website.
Very nice is the how-to on detecting "shady" offers for ethnographic research =).

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Excerpts from an Interview with Genevieve Bell about her ethnographic study in Asia. She is working as a cultural anthropologist at Intel.

[via many-to-many]

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"Yak farmers in the mountains of Nepal are using wireless internet technology to keep in touch with their families.
They are taking advantage of a wi-fi network set up in a remote region of the mountain kingdom where there are no phones or other means of communication.
It is the result of a campaign led by local teacher Mahabir Pun, and backed by volunteers and donations, to bring the internet to an isolated part of the world.", reports BBC.
Project homepage: nepalwireless.net
Interview with Mahabir Pun

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Article in Firstmonday: The Internet in developing nations: Grand challenges. Lots of history and facts.

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The title of the weblog "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends: How new technologies are modifying our way of life" is self-explaining, I guess.
via mosaikum

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Finally Africars is online! The beautifully desigend website is a project by one of our students, originally stemming from his own extensive fieldwork in western Africa. And I am so generous a man to host it on our university's server. The overall theme of the site is the cultural adoption of the automobile in Africa. The site contains vast image-material which in itself already is worthwhile to view. Those capable of reading German will find accompanying texts (work in progress). The whole site will grow more -- there are already some interesting parts in the making.

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"More than 70 people who work on free and open source software in Africa gathered in Namibia between March 15 and 19 to teach, to learn, and to network. This meeting, called Africa Source, was the first event of its kind, bringing together developers from roughly 25 countries on the continent, as well as visitors from a dozen countries outside Africa."
A report from the CEO of AllAfrica.com
With some interesting thoughts. Read some thoughts from a hacker from Accra, Ghana, why he thinks that african developers have to focus on african problems, and why india is not a good model.
Via SWR

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"Evangelical Christians are using the new media environment to promote their own worldview and protect their traditions from what they see as a secular onslaught."
A report from MIT Technology Review.

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