i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

In an attempt to reduce spam, scams, and the spread of pornography via cell phone, the Chinese government is requiring citizens and visitors to provide identification when purchasing a SIM card. Working with government-control telecom companies, convenience store owners and street vendors, China hopes to organize a system in which all cell phone numbers and SIM cards can be linked to an individual.

Even a legendary visionary like Vannevar Bush might have been taken aback had he visited the VMworld conference held last week.
 Three ideas that will enable the seamless flow of information, that integrate humans with the world of digital data. There are no definite boundaries anymore. Are we becoming like human  computers , or are they becoming computer humans!

While the whole world is going crazy over social networking, how can Apple be behind? Steve Jobs has taken it upon himself to make people think of Apple, as a Social networking company, on the lines of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others. But will Apple succeed in changing people's mindsets? Only time will tell, meanwhile, check out the powerful list of social media offerings by Apple:

In his legendary TED talk, Hans Rosling, a global health researcher from Sweden, presents a tool called "Gapminder" which uses a simple and intuitive visualization of complex macroecononmic information to clearly point out particular global trends. This tool (available online) has access to a bulk of information about almost all countries in the world regarding GDP, HIV, CO2 emissions etc. starting from 1800. Rosling successfully bridges the gap by providing an interactive interface that allows the exporation of vast data sets in an intuitive and entertaining way.

Haven’t you run across images online where you’ve wondered what a particular item in the image was? And then read the image caption to discover that it told you nothing about what you were wondering about. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could describe parts of an image that may or may not contribute to the overall message in the name of the file or the image caption? Well, now you can.

Collecting information is not the same everywhere. This article by The Economist reveals different methods used to collect information for digital maps: from using sophisticated GPS systems in England, to note-taking in India and voluntary contributions in Nigeria. There is no single way to get data from every place, and different information is needed by different users in a variety of contexts. The following questions arise: How do we standarize all these different data-collections?

Wolfram Alpha is a new search engine that launched in May that is geared toward an educated audience looking just for data. Instead of providing a list of links like Google or another search engine, WA returns just the data and relevant graphs. The system's strengths are real-time calculations, powerful algorithms that search the web, and curated data sets.

A recent study in Germany suggests that non-traditional first names are correlated with poor academic performances and bad behavior.

Surprisingly, at least for Americans, is the particularly poor performance associated with the name "Kevin". I've known some bad Jeffs, and even a few sketchy Erics, but Kevin? This guy?

This essay from NYTimes.com poses an interesting question regarding how in the wake of Caster Semenya's gold medal victory at the world track and field chapionships, the International Assoc. of Athletics Federations is struggling to set clear rules for sex typing.

Proving identity in India can sometime result in frustrating experience. If you go to Bank for opening an account, they will ask for Permanent Account Number (PAN) card issued by finance ministry of India. If you hail from low income group and want to take advantage of subsidized food provided by the government then they will ask for ration card. If you want to exercise your right as a citizen of India during various elections then they will ask for voter ID card. Furthermore, all these proof documents are not linked with each other.