iran

Artists are developing robots that can consume flies and rodents. That means they'll get a taste for flesh. What could go wrong? They come for your butt, that's what. We also take NASA to task, and discuss the effect of Michael Jackson's death on the Internet and what it might mean for future emergencies. All that and some ageism.

News sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10273325-93.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10273277-93.html… Read more

A joint venture of Siemens AG and Nokia Corp., two large European technology firms, is denying reports that Iran uses its Web-monitoring technology to censor and spy on its citizens' online activities.

Nokia Siemens Networks said Monday that it has sold telecommunications systems to the Iranian government but that any built-in monitoring technology was for voice communications and not the Internet.

"The lawful intercept capability is purely for local voice calls," spokesman Ben Roome said in an interview. "We don't know who may have provided other Internet technologies to Iran."

The company's denial comes … Read more

As yet, Twitter is likely not on anyone's list of the top 10 most-critical applications. But has the U.S. government given Twitter a big push toward critical application status? This week the U.S. Department of State told Twitter it could not shut down for system maintenance because it had become a lifeline for thousands of protesters in Iran.

That should change the way IT vendors (particularly infrastructure vendors) view social-networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Generally speaking, social-networking sites offer no guarantees to users. You post your content, you take your chances. And, while there … Read more

Twitter has the starring role as opening up Net communications about Iran's turbulent politics, but Google and Facebook are jumping in with their its own hasty efforts.

Google is adding Farsi, or Persian, language support to its translation service, the company announced Thursday night. Google rushed out the support specifically because of events in Iran, said Principal Scientist Franz Och in a blog posting.

"We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran," Och said. "Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use … Read more

A new generation of Iranians has found ways to bypass the country's notoriously censorial Internet restrictions and disseminate details about Iran's internal turmoil in the wake of the recent election.

In technical circles, at least, Iran is well-known for erecting one of the world's most restrictive Internet blockades, second only to China in its scope. Certain blogs are cordoned off, politically unacceptable keywords are blocked, and Web sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, the BBC, and YouTube remain--at least at the moment--off-limits.

That has complicated the task of distributing videos and e-mail descriptions of the hundreds of thousands … Read more

A State Department press briefing gives some insight into why the U.S. government requested that Twitter postpone a scheduled downtime during a crucial period in the post-election upheaval in Iran.

"I think, as I was following this, these developments over the weekend...I began to recognize the importance of new social media as a vital tool for citizens' empowerment and as a way for people to get their messages out," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday, according to a transcript of the department's daily press briefing (which was not held specifically to address the Twitter … Read more

When Twitter rescheduled some planned downtime in order to stay accessible for Iranian users in the midst of political upheaval, it was at the request of the U.S. State Department, according to CNN.

This should not be taken to mean that the U.S. is attempting to get involved at this point, CNN added. The State Department is working with multiple social-networking and communication services to ensure that conversation and information channels stay active.

"By necessity, the U.S. is staying hands-off of the election drama playing out in Iran, and officials say they are not providing messages … Read more

Chinese filtering software has been criticized for having holes. The solution? Fix it. How communist. We also give you a hack for getting free tethering on the iPhone and we bemoan the fate of MySpace.

Opera Unite aims to reinvent the Web http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2009/06/hi-my-name-is-opera-and-ill-be-your-server-today.html

AT&T won’t charge extra for MMS on iPhone http://www.applethoughts.com/news/show/94126/at-t-not-planning-on-charging-for-mms.html

…And here’s how … Read more

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from a reader who had seen my story about Twitter users slamming CNN for its initial absence on the post-Iranian election protests, urging me to remove an image in the story.

The rationale? The image was of Twitter results and included users' account IDs, and the reader was worried that the Iranian government might seek out and punish any users who were employing Twitter for potentially subversive purposes.

We decided not to remove the image, in part because it had been up for more than 24 hours, and also because we suspected that the Iranian … Read more