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“I am a former hacker” who was once convicted of insider trading, he wrote, before going on to say “In all seriousness: My wife, two kids and myself love New Zealand and ‘We come in peace.’”

Dotcom’s emails came to light Wednesday, the same day a New Zealand judge denied him bail following his arrest on U.S. accusations of copyright infringement and a U.S. official confirmed the arrest of a fifth member of his company.

Judge David McNaughton in Auckland denied Dotcom bail pending a hearing Feb. 22 on his possible extradition to face trial in the United States, saying Dotcom poses a flight risk. Dotcom, 38, insists he is innocent and poses no flight risk.

New Zealand police arrested three other Megaupload employees last week on U.S. accusations they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. McNaughton is expected to make bail rulings on the three later this week or early next week.

In Washington, a U.S. Justice Department official said Dutch police have arrested a fifth suspect – software programmer Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and a resident of both Turkey and Estonia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still pending.

In New Zealand, Dotcom’s neighbor Kevin Crossley said Dotcom cut an imposing figure when he took a lease on the $24 million luxury mansion in their sleepy neighborhood of Coatesville, near Auckland. Crossley said he never met Dotcom, but he would see him zooming past in luxury cars when he went horse riding.

Dotcom sent emails to Crossley’s wife France Komoroski and other neighbors, joking that “a criminal neighbor like me” could help them with insider stock tips and tax fraud. But then he turned serious.

“Fifteen years ago I was a hacker and 10 years ago I was convicted for insider trading,” he wrote. “Hardly the kind of crimes you need to start a witch hunt for. Since then I have been a good boy, my criminal records have been cleared, and I created a successful Internet company that employs 100+ people.”

Dotcom first developed a reputation as a computer hacker in his native Germany, where he was born Kim Schmitz.

Later, in 2002, he received a 20-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of manipulating stock prices to earn himself $1.1 million.

The flamboyant Dotcom also made headlines after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 when he offered a $10 million reward on his website for information leading to the capture of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In New Zealand, Prime Minister John Key faced awkward questions Wednesday about how immigration officials could have granted Dotcom residency despite his prior convictions – and then the government could later turn down his application to buy the Coatesville mansion due to questions over his character prompted by those same convictions.

Key said Dotcom had disclosed his convictions in his immigration application but that enough time had elapsed to give him a clean slate. Key acknowleged it seemed inconsistent that the test for buying land would be higher than the test for residency.

“What I’ve asked my officials to do, is to go away and have a look, because there’s clearly a potential anomoly there,” Key told reporters Wednesday.

In all, U.S. authorities have charged seven men in the conspiracy case and are still seeking the arrest of the remaining two men.

Authorities in the U.S. are seeking to extradite the four men arrested in New Zealand and are also expected to seek Nomm’s extradition.

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Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor’s confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos. The company’s main website was down, with a banner saying the “site is currently undergoing maintenance.”

Proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor’s newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, however, with the main threat posed to individual employees who had subscribed.

“Not so private and secret anymore?” Anonymous taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Anonymous said the client list it had already posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit card details in part because Stratfor didn’t bother encrypting them – an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.

Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president of intelligence, said the company had reported the intrusion to law enforcement and was working with them on the investigation.

Stratfor has protections in place meant to prevent such attacks, he said.

“But I think the hackers live in this kind of world where once they fixate on you or try to attack you it’s extraordinarily difficult to defend against,” Burton said.

Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor’s client list, Anonymous tweeted a link to encrypted files online with names, phone numbers, emails, addresses and credit card account details.

“Not as many as you expected? Worry not, fellow pirates and robin hoods. These are just the `A’s,” read a message posted online that encouraged readers to download a file of the hacked information.

The attack is “just another in a massive string of breaches we’ve seen this year and in years past,” said Josh Shaul, chief technology officer of Application Security Inc., a New York-based provider of database security software.

Still, companies that shared secret information with Stratfor in order to obtain threat assessments might worry that the information is among the 200 gigabytes of data that Anonymous claims to have stolen, he said.

“If an attacker is walking away with that much email, there might be some very juicy bits of information that they have,” Shaul said.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that “for obvious reasons” the Air Force doesn’t discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them.

“The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take appropriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information,” he said in an email.

Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about a security breach involving the police department.

Anonymous also linked to images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole.

“Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency,” read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee’s information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.

One receipt – to the American Red Cross – had Allen Barr’s name on it.

Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of $700 had been spent from his account. Barr, who has spent more than a decade dealing with cybercrime at banks, said five transactions were made in total.

“It was all charities, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children. So when the credit card company called my wife she wasn’t sure whether I was just donating,” said Barr, who wasn’t aware until a reporter with the AP called that his information had been compromised when Stratfor’s computers were hacked.

“It made me feel terrible. It made my wife feel terrible. We had to close the account.”

Wishing everyone a “Merry LulzXMas” – a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security – Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee.

The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted.

“They took money I did not have,” he told The Associated Press in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. “I think `Why me?’ I am not rich.”

But the breach doesn’t necessarily pose a risk to owners of the credit cards. A card user who suspects fraudulent activity on his or her card can contact the credit card company to dispute the charge.

Stratfor said in an email to members that it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked.

“We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites,” said the email, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman and passed on to AP by subscribers. “We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained.”

“Stratfor’s relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me,” Friedman wrote.

One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists – “corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox” News – had been hacked and used to “steal a million dollars” and make donations.

It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al-Jazeera English appeared in the file.

Anonymous warned it has “enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week.”

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on credit card companies Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., eBay Inc.’s PayPal, as well as other groups in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

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Suddenly the pager — a device developed nearly 40 years ago to quiet the constant noise of hospital’s telecom systems — quickly became a drug dealer’s best way to supply the constant demand of his fiends, while also avoiding the surveillance of the cops.

Time Magazine captured this moment in a 1986 article called “Street Smart: Drug Dealers Turn On To Beepers.” Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Curtis Hazell said:

Beepers are the single most-common tool of the drug trade.

At the same time that doctors and drug dealers were utilizing the technology for work and hustle, Black youth were adopting and co-opting pagers as a social tool used to stay in constant contact with friends. As they did, the black matte plastic devices that doctors toted started changing color, transforming the pager from a mobile communication device into a popular fashion accessory.

By 1990, popular hip-hop artists were referencing the burgeoning mobile technology, fueling its popularity to the point where more than 22-million pagers were in use. Four years later, the number of pagers being used had skyrocketed to more than 60 million. During the rise of the pager, various artists, including Sir Mix-A -Lot and A Tribe Called Quest, released songs paying homage to and detailing the importance of the wireless communication device.

As is the case with many new technologies, African Americans, through experimentation and innovation, have helped to diffuse such innovations to the masses. The pager is just one example of the trend, where young, savvy African Americans adopt, then shift the intended use and turn a new technology into a valuable social tool that gets integrated into one’s personal life.

As with the pager, hip-hop and its adoption and appropriation of hardware, such as the turntable, synthesizer, drum machine, boom box and the sampler, have in each instance worked to revolutionize the use, leading to improvements and ultimately popularizing these technologies.

It is a trend marketers have come to understand in a framework they call the “technology adoption life cycle,” a model that details the adoption and acceptance of new products and innovations. Its bell curve details the psychographic profile of five adoption groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

When it comes to the introduction of new technologies, young African Americans quite often prove to be the early adopters and trendsetters who use technology in new ways that helps companies refine their products. This realization has shaped the way companies do business, with marketers now knowing that where young African Americans lead, the world follows.

For instance, a number of prepay mobile providers have entered the game looking to serve Black customers who, according to the latest census data, make roughly 1.7 times less than whites yet run up more mobile voice minutes per month (1,261 minutes on average than any other ethnic group).

Boost Mobile, a wireless prepay mobile provider that began its business by courting the surf culture of Australia, bullied its way into the U.S. mobile market in 2006, spending millions on a marketing strategy that featured prominent rap artists like Kanye West, the Game and Ludacris in a campaign called “Where You At,” highlighting the mobile-communication customs of urban Black youth.

Darryl Cobbin, then-CMO of Boost Mobile who was responsible for spearheading the brand’s U.S. marketing efforts, details the insight that led to Boost:

We knew that if we captured this market not would they influence Black youth, but they would influence other youth and everyone else.

By designing what Cobbin called “fly” phones and amassing a distribution network with smaller cell carriers who serviced prepay customers, Boost quickly became the fastest-growing wireless brand in the prepaid category.

African Americans not only adopt the latest hardware, but also adopt and appropriate the newest software especially with the web. Before Myspace, Facebook and Twitter dominated the social media landscape, BlackPlanet became one of the most-frequented online destinations for Black youth. While not the first social network, many insiders credit BlackPlanet and its loyal trendsetting audience with bringing the obscure trend (yet to be called “social networking”) to the mainstream.

The guys who started Myspace were quoted in Business Week magazine saying that they looked at BlackPlanet as a model for Myspace and thought there was an opportunity to do a general market version of what BlackPlanet was,” Omar Wasow, the founder of BlackPlanet told Complex magazine.

Myspace went on to build its own loyal following, becoming one of the hottest properties on the web and sparking a bidding war before being bought by Newscorp for $580 million in 2005. A year later, Myspace briefly surpassed Google as the most-visited website in the United States. And to no one’s surprise, much of its audience was African-American youth. Soon thereafter, Facebook and Twitter grew to become the next Internet Goliaths, and once again, African Americans are fueling their growth.

Twitter, the popular microblogging site, is a another example. According to a new 2011 Pew Center study, 25 percent of online African-Americans are now using Twitter, compared with only 9 percent of online whites. While similar research conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 1 in 10 African-American Internet users now use Twitter on a typical day, which is double the rate for Latinos and almost four times the rate for whites.

A 2010 Slate article credits young African Americans with creating the Twitter culture we know today, where replies and retweets have not only made the site a robust conversational tool, but also the new unofficial language of the web.

Brendan Meeder, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University who analyzed the tweets of more than 100-million users to see how Twitter users interact with one another, found that African Americans on Twitter have taken to forming tight-knit groups that propel and virtually dominate Twitter memes, otherwise know as trending topics.

It’s my impression that these hashtags start in dense communities — people who are highly connected to each other,” Meeder told Slate. “If you have 50 of these people talking about it, think about the number of outsiders who follow at least one of those 50 — it’s pretty high at that point. So you can actually get a pretty big network effect by having high density.

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—–

This month, NewsOne presents a special exploration of Black Americans’ influence on social media, #TWEETING WHILE BLACK.

—–

Navarrow Wright has a mission.

“It’s easier to become an entrepreneur than it is to be a rapper,” he often tells people.

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Wright, the chief technical officer of InteractiveOne (parent company of NewsOne), was in many ways the spiritual force behind the events portrayed in CNN’s recent edition of Black In America called” “The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley.” Wright was the leading mentor to over a half-dozen hopeful Black tech entrepreneurs seeking funding and support from the tech industry, the “Yoda” to a crowd of young tech Luke Skywalkers.

In a new blog posted on CNN.com, Wright offers an impassioned plea for young Black Americans to view the tech sector as much of an opportunity as they do the world of entertainment:

We are slowly becoming an underclass in a world where opportunities are abundant to others. Since my on experience as a technology entrepreneur, I’ve been committed to creating opportunities for exposure to as many people as I can and connecting with other future entrepreneurs to help them understand the process that needs to followed, level of focus need and the personal and professional awards that await them. So when Angela Benton, one of the NewMe Accelerator founders, asked me to be a mentor for the program, I accepted immediately. The ability to be a part of a process that helps develop minority entrepreneurs was something I quickly and humbly accepted.

So, now that program has been covered in CNN and has become a national conversation. Does race matter in technology entrepreneurship? How can we, as African-Americans, become an active part of this ecosystem? While we all may have different vantage points and opinions on these and the other questions that are being raised, the important thing is that the dialogue is happening across the country. I’ve always believed that in order to make real change, we have to change people’s perspectives and show people examples that they can relate to in order to make the opportunity real. The challenge now is to make sure that enough people see the documentary and have the dialogue continue so that real changes can come of it.

Read More On CNN

SEE THE ENTIRE #TWEETINGWHILEBLACK SERIES HERE

Marks states that if he were a poor Black kid, he would utilize technology and attempt to get into private or charter schools and focus on academics. What Marks does not explain is if he were a poor Black kid, how he would have knowledge of the various technologies, websites and schools he advocates.

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.

And I would use the technology available to me as a student. I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home then on the streets. And libraries and schools have computers available too. Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet. Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all.

Read More At Forbes

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“The site touches on subjects like, the rewards of hard work and importance of learning manners as well as the idea that doing good deeds for others will bring good into your life – which is the meaning of the word Karma,” said Ludacris said of the site. “The music and lyrics, games and stories on the site are all original and were created by me, my daughter and my creative team.

Karmasworld.com teaches children from grades 1 to 3 and 4 to 6 academic lessons about math, science and geography, as well as ethical and social responsibilities like manners, honesty and kindness.”

Learn more about Karmasworld.com at Allhiphop.com.

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I agree that this topic needs to be discussed but it needs to be discussed from a viewpoint that takes the children’s needs into effect instead of just looking at the issue based on dollars and cents and a skewed perspective on percentages. If you read this article, you would believe that these software programs offer moderate improvement at best, and are not cost efficient in most cases. The point that this article does not discuss is that these programs are looking to fill the gap of the lack of skill reinforcement that is not available in most public schools, and how most of those schools are mostly comprised of people of color. Articles like this that just lay out data points in a casual way do more to continue people’s misconceptions about how technology can improve and supplement learning to the benefit of students, especially students in areas with low resources. What was even more disturbing than the myopic approach the writer used to communicate issues, were the images that were used.

When I was first presented with the article this was the image I was presented with:

Now the first question I ask is what does this image convey to you? Some of you would say confusion, lack of understanding or an overall inability to utilize and understand the technology. Now imagine what the image would convey to some teenage African Americans who are on the fence about whether to take the leap to become computer literate. The image is a grave contrast to the image I found that they used on an earlier story.

What’s even more interesting is the story that image was used for painted a more dire picture that the article I found. Its title was ”In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores,” but imagery of these children ( not people of color) is upbeat and full of promise. Why the difference? We could spend months trying to get an explanation but regardless of that reason the result is no less damaging.What the writers of these pieces may or may not realize is that even though these  programs may not have ideal results, they are doing some things that are core to solving some key issues that contribute to the digital divide.

These programs help students develop a real comfort level with using computers and the internet. By using the software the kids develop  an understanding the repetitive learning is key to skill development.  This will also give the students the urge to want to have computer and internet access at home, which is key to adoption.

What most people don’t realize is that the biggest roadblock in closing the digital divide is not cost but digital literacy. Many African Americans and Hispanics see digital literacy as an impossible goal for them mainly because they don’t see the value in it for them. Stories and images like these only help to continue to discourage people against making the effort to adopt technology. We need more examples of minorities utilizing and succeeding with technology to change the perception that technology is not “for us”  Let me know what you think of how the two images were used below in the comments .

You can follow Navarrow Wright on twitter @navarrowwright

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Form Factor

this phone is definitely not the biggest phone, but it is still up there among the big boys at 4.5″. At first glance it looks like only the manliest of men will be handling this phone. However, when you pick it up, its not heavy at all and its very thin. This gives the feeling that the phone is manageable for those of us with smaller hands. A few of my female coworkers remarked how well it fit in the hand.

The back cover of the device is still plastic, however, its sort of recessed in the back taking up very little space. The rest of the phone is solid. The speaker worked better than I thought which I attribute to the thin plastic back cover.

Battery Life

I played around with the phone for two days straight which, sorry to say, is unheard of for many Android devices. I kept gps, auto-sync, and wifi on. The brightness was about medium. I didn’t do a huge amount of calling but did do a bit of internet surfing and it performed well.

Read more at TheManly-Man.com

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U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn believes that any plan to attack the debt and deficits will not work unless it includes ways to create jobs. And while the points of his message were worth hearing, it was the method he used that really caught my eye.

Last week, he conducted a virtual town hall on the site Politic365.com where he addressed topics such as broadband access, job creation, the Bush tax cuts and medicare to name a few. These topics were in response to questions he received via email or phone during the town hall. This kind of access to elected officials is usually hard to come by — but in this lengthy session — people were allowed to hear his thoughts on all the major issues. I hope that other members of our government take his lead on this innovative way of staying connected to the pulse of their constituents.

You can hear the town hall here. And you can see highlights of some of his answers below.

• On the need to expand adoption of broadband Internet access: “I’m convinced that our young people competing for jobs in the future will be competing in a global basis.”

• On high-tech jobs: “I think that training, training and training must be done. I don’t think we put enough focus on training people for jobs of the future.”

• On the Bush tax breaks and correcting tax loopholes: “I really believe in shared sacrifice. I believe we’ve allowed too much to get out of kilter. The fact of the matter is those tax breaks were unfairly tilted toward the wealthy. Everybody knows that. There is no denying it. I think tax breaks need to be fair. I don’t believe that closing a loophole is a tax increase.”

• On Medicare: “We extended the life of Medicare by 14 years. We did so by cutting $500 billion out of Medicare on the provider side, so that we could pile that money back into Medicare on the benefits side. So nobody got their benefits cut, but it got misrepresented in the media. It was used against us in the campaign last year — $500 billion Medicare cuts — and a lot of people went crazy. The Ryan budget passed by the Republicans will continue big tax cuts for wealthy people while at the same time turn the Medicare program into some kind of a voucher that will cost Medicare recipients an additional $6,000 over a year. That’s the kind of stuff we’ve got to guard against.”

• On disrespect in politics: “We’ve allowed the discourse in our society to become too course. We’ve allowed our treatment of each other to become too harsh. I just think that this treatment, that so many people are vicious toward President Obama, is beyond the pale. I don’t know anything in politics that will allow you to disrespect somebody. I can have differences with people in politics, but you don’t have to disrespect.”

• On spending on infrastructure to help the economy: “I hope that this time around the president will make that a big part of his jobs program, to do these big infrastructure projects that will not only provide jobs in the short term but will have long-term benefits to communities.”

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The initiative will serve as another attempt by the president to promote job-creation during the country’s current economic downturn.

The Huffington Post Reports:

Obama will be touring the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, which is building machines that can help with bomb disposal, brain surgery, lawn mowing and paint scraping. Ultimately, some scientists at the institute are trying to figure out whether robots and humans can “treat each other as equal partners or teammates.”

The administration’s plan includes $70 million for a robotics initiative. It also is aiming $300 million toward national security industries and $100 million for research and training to more quickly develop advanced materials at lower costs. Some of the $500 million would come from existing allocations to government agencies, but other money is only reflected in Obama’s 2012 budget request and would require approval by Congress.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

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Atlanta — African American students who attend HBCUs do better in both math an technology according to a recent report. BlackWeb 2.0 reports:

On Monday, The Commission released its annual briefing report on The Educational Effectiveness of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)and Encouraging Minority Students to Pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Careers. The study found that students at historically black colleges and universities reported higher levels of academic involvement in their studies and in faculty research projects than black students at non-HBCUs.

Read The Whole Story

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Allhiphop is reporting the rapper, Mos Def will teaming up with NASA and astronaut, Leland Marvin to promote science and education in Oakland, California. The two will appear, along with singer Goapale at the Cabot Space and Science Center September 5th for a space, science and hologram presentation. Here is what Mos Def said of the event.

Leland Melvin and myself are working with the Instituting Science in Schools Program, sponsored by NASA and I’m just here to give the young people some inspiration, some positive encouragement and some good information about science, technology, creativity and discovery and how to use math, science and information to make a positive impact and changes on the world around us

NASA I.S.I.S Program with MosDef & Astronaut Leland Melvin from OpenLineMedia on Vimeo.

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A car designed by students and mentors in De Laselle County High School in Kansas have developed a car that can get more than 400 miles per gallon. One of those students was Kelvin Dooley who spoke to a news team about the amazing invention. THe experience he had made him change his dreams from being a basketball player to being an engineer.

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Movie Trailer:

From Wikipedia

The Social Network is an upcoming 2010 drama film directed by David Fincher about the founding of the social networking website Facebook. The film features an ensemble cast which consists of Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones, Max Minghella, Rooney Mara, Malese Jow, and Joseph Mazzello.

Text continues after gallery …

The film was written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. The film is distributed by Columbia Pictures and is set for an October 1, 2010 release. None of the Facebook staff, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, will be involved with the project. One of the co-founders, Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich’s book.

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The image of the affluent and white cellphone owner as the prototypical mobile Web user seems to be a misnomer, according to a report published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Center.
The study found that African-Americans and Latinos continue to be more likely to own cellphones than whites and more likely to use their phones for a greater range of activities.

This increase in mobile Web use, first noticed in a similar study by the Pew Center last summer, is driven both by age and economics, according to Aaron W. Smith of the Pew Center. Younger people and people living in households making less than $30,000 a year are increasing their mobile Web use at particularly fast rates, he said, and the African American and Latino populations are younger and poorer relative to the white population.

Because mobile Web use has grown among groups like African Americans and Latinos that have traditionally lagged in Web access, it has been cited as evidence that the distinction between the digital haves and have-nots is eroding.

But the mobile Web means different things to different people. For more affluent populations, it generally means wireless access with a laptop computer. For poorer people it means a cellphone, which is not a perfect replacement for other forms of online access, said Mr. Smith and several others who study social issues related to technology.

Text continues after gallery …

There is a difference between accessing the Internet on a smartphone and a regular “feature phone” cellphone. The Pew report did not reflect this distinction.

Americans in general are accessing the Internet through mobile devices in increasing numbers, according to the Pew report, with 59 percent of those surveyed saying they accessed the mobile Web, compared with 51 percent a year ago.

Notably, rates of laptop ownership among African Americans grew dramatically to 51 percent from 34 percent in 2009, according to the study, a survey of 2,252 adults aged 18 and older.

But 18 percent of African Americans use a cellphone as their only form of Internet access, compared to 10 percent of whites. People with low incomes and low levels of education were also much more likely to access the Internet through their cellphones alone.

Shireen Mitchell, the founder of Digital Sisters and a consultant on social media campaigns focused on women and minorities, said that the way in which people access the Internet should remain a part of the conversation about the digital divide.

“The quality of what is available through cell only is limited access,” she said. “We are moving in a positive direction about true cellphone usage and it’s relevant to online access but there are still some challenges ahead.”

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SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is using its financial clout to push the Haitian marketplace toward change by offering $10 million in prizes to the first companies to help Haitians send and receive money with their cell phones.

The project is different from the foundation’s more common approach, which would be to ask for proposals, make grants and then hope for good results. This time the foundation — and its partner, the U.S. Agency for International Development — wants to see the results first and then hand out some cash.

USAID is adding another $5 million to the project for help with technical assistance.

In addition to death and destruction, the January earthquake devastated Haiti’s financial system, destroying automatic teller machines, preventing some people from getting cash and making a possession of cash unsafe when nearly everyone was sleeping on the street, said Priya Jaisinghani, senior adviser to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah.

“If successful, this could be a transformative measure for Haiti,” she said.

In the past four years, the Gates Foundation has committed nearly $500 million toward helping the poor get mobile access to financial services, mostly in Africa. The foundation has also given $2 million toward relief efforts in Haiti, including shelter, food, sanitation and health.

In Kenya, for example, the M-PESA mobile money service allows 9 million people to pay for everything from clothing to school fees using their mobile phones, said Amolo Ngweno, deputy director of the foundation’s financial services for the poor program.

The transactions are easier and safer than carrying cash, save the cost of traveling to and from actual bank branches, and have allowed them to increase their savings and their earnings by between 5 and 30 percent, according to early results of a recent study by the University of Edinburgh.

In Haiti, the foundation hopes to encourage existing cell phone companies, banks or technology companies to give people easy access to financial aid and let them spend money for necessities now, and improve the ability of Haitians to save money for the future, Ngweno said.

“We saw this as an opportunity to intervene, not just for the short term but also for the longer term, to help people have a mobile financial existence,” she said.

Before the earthquake, fewer than 10 percent of Haitians had ever used a commercial bank, according to USAID.

The foundation is offering a prize of $2.5 million to the first company to launch a mobile money service in the next six months that meets certain criteria, which include being a broad service that has the potential for scaling up across the whole country.

“What we don’t want to encourage is short-term or small operators to get into the market just to earn the award,” Ngweno said.

The second successful operator within the first 12 months will get $1.5 million. Another $6 million will be distributed after the first 5 million transactions take place and will be divided among those companies that enabled the transactions.

“We set up this fund to harness the power of the market,” Ngweno said. “They should be actively seeking the right solutions for Haiti.”

Haiti has three cell phone companies and at least two were already looking into the possibility of mobile banking, Jaisinghani said.

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From StarTribune.com:

Five-year-old Moses Mwaura, who barely a week ago was living in a Kenyan slum, seemed perfectly at home Thursday in the plush surroundings of the Edina Country Club.

Looking through a brand-new pair of glasses with newly straightened eyes, he shook and slapped hands, showed well-wishers his newly cleaned teeth and signed a wobbly “Moses” on a newspaper story for a fan.

Moses was at the luncheon to meet Edina Rotary Club members who have heard his story as an example of the good that Rotarians do with international projects.

Click here to view photos (WARNING: Some images may be graphic.):

Moses’ eyes were severely crossed when he met Edina Rotarian Sandy Schley two years ago as she toured a dismal slum. Determined to get the boy help, Rotarians and the community joined forces to get Moses an all-expenses-paid trip to Minnesota.

He arrived a week ago courtesy of Delta Airlines, bringing only the donated clothes on his back. An eye surgeon, dentist, pediatrician, attorney, Fairview Southdale Hospital and others donated their skills, time and money to help Moses.

Click here to read more.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

Diane Campbell saved up $600 in cash to buy herself an iPad, but her money was refused at a Palo Alto Apple Store. An employee informed her that in an effort to keep iPads off the black market, Apple would accept only debit or credit cards for its “magical” tablet.

Campbell, dismayed by the store’s no-cash-for-iPad policy, contacted ABC News’ ’7 On Your Side’. “Mr. Jobs, give a sister a break,” she implored.

’7 On Your Side’ brought attention to Apple’s “no plastic, no tablet” policy, and the company has since revised its “no cash” rule.

Apple’s senior VP Ron Johnson told ’7 On Your Side,’ “About a month ago, we said we’d like you to use a credit card when you buy your iPad, and that was the best way we could think of to make sure that people only bought two per individual [...] And then it came to our attention that Diane [Campbell], through your story, was very interested in buying an iPad with cash, and we made a decision today to change that.”

’7 On Your Side’ explains the new Apple Store policy:

As of today, anyone can pay for an iPad with cash as long as they set up their Apple account at the store. Apple accounts are needed for the iPad anyway, so that is not putting anyone out.

Apple delivered a free iPad to Campbell’s house (no word on which model it was). “I am just so excited,” Campbell said. She added, “What I would like to say to Steve is thank you.”

Click here to read more.

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WATCH full report here:

Click here to view photos:

From ABCLocal.com:

PALO ALTO (KGO) — It is said that “cash is king” and that people can buy anything with U.S. currency. But, that is not always true and the red hot Apple iPad is a case in point.

It is unbelievable but true.

Apple Computer has come a long way since its old renegade pirate days when it was all about making computers accessible to everybody. Now, it seems the company is more worried about guarding against piracy.

So, your cash is not always welcome at the Apple store.

Diane Campbell can play a few songs on her guitar, but she wants to learn a few more. All she has to do, she says, is go online and download some instructions.

“Different YouTube videos where people would go online and play their music, and kind of break it down into pieces,” she said describing her method.

Click here to read more.

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NEW YORK — Kraft Foods is freshening up the image of its Jell-O brand by pairing up with an old friend.

Comedian Bill Cosby joins the gelatin and pudding brand again after a 10-year hiatus, but this time he’ll be behind the camera as part of the brand’s biggest marketing effort ever.

The comedian, whose work with Jell-O dates to 1974, will be an executive producer for the “Hello Jell-O” campaign, which starts with national advertisements on Monday. In return, Jell-O will be the presenting sponsor of Cosby’s new weekly Web series called “OBKB.” On the show he interviews children in the style of the classic show “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

RELATED: VIDEO: Bill Cosby’s Rap Group Aims To Combat Violence

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“You watch TV, all these reality shows and profanity and things like that, we need to show the heart and the laughter that children have,” he said in an interview.

Cosby last appeared in a Jell-O ad in 1999, but still hears from people about the pairing and from adults who starred with him as children. He and Jell-O decided he would be behind the scenes in the new campaign.

Cosby will help kick off a 22-city tour next month in Los Angeles to find the country’s best giggle, which will be featured in a television ad. He’ll also do radio interviews to promote the tour, said Cindy Chen, director of Jell-O for Kraft.

The first of the 10-minute episodes of “OBKB” will air May 31 on Cosby’s Ustream channel, http://www.ustream.tv/billcosby. The title comes from how the friend he modeled the character “Mush Mouth” on says “okay.”

Jell-O’s multimillion-dollar campaign is its biggest ever. It’s also updating its logo with a smiling, new face that will appear on print, online and in TV ads that show people disrupting everyday activities such as work with cups of Jell-O.

RELATED: Bill Cosby Dishes About “Cosby Show” On 25th Anniversary

Kraft, based in Northfield, Ill., is trying to breathe new life into the gelatin and pudding market, which it dominates. Shoppers are switching from branded products to store brands and skimping on purchases to save money. Sales volume fell more than 6 percent each for Jell-O gelatin and pudding in the 52-week period ending in mid-April, excluding sales in Wal-Mart and club stores, according to SymphonyIRI Group, a Chicago market research firm.

From TheGrio.com:

Rosa Parks refused to stand. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. Barack Obama won the presidential election. America’ s plight for racial equality has had its struggles, its heroes and its progress. But on the nearby island of Cuba, some say modern-day racism against blacks is blatant, and fighting it isn’t as simple as public protest.

According to Afro-Cuban activists, racism against blacks in Cuba is systemic and institutional. They say, to this day, blacks are excluded from tourism related jobs, relegated to poor housing, have poor access to health care, are excluded from managerial positions and are more likely to be imprisoned.

Click here to view photos:

Carlos Moore is an Afro-Cuban activist who has spent his life writing about racial injustice in Cuba and says race is the country’s most pressing issue. In 2008, he sent a scathing letter to Cuban leader Raul Castro demanding racial reform. In it, he states: “You are a descendant of Europeans born in Spain; I am a descendant of Africans born in the Caribbean. We are both Cubans. However, being Cuban confers no specific privilege on either of us as human beings”.

It was a luxury of civil protest he could only afford to write while exiled in Brazil. According to Moore, “There is an unstated threat. Blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore, the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead”. He says a new generation of Cubans are looking at politics in another way.

That new generation is going the way of the world wide web. Henry Gomez, a White Cuban living in Florida, noticed that some of the most outspoken voices against racism in Cuba are bloggers. So he founded Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty (BUCL).

Click here to read more.

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From JackandJillPolitics.com:

Me? I love tha twitter. For those of you using it to get the latest news and info: you can follow our blog posts at @jjpolitics and my thought stream direct at @ch3ryl. For those who ain’t — whatchu waitin’ for? Twitter is apparently a place we now dominate, which I can attest to given the number of black followers who tweet and re-tweet me regularly (plus all the brothers and sisters I’m following).

Here’s the deets – it’s more proof we’re digital-savvy as a people and the digital divide is closing fast. In fact Pew Internet found in a study last year that when you factor in mobile internet access, there is no digital divide and in fact, minorities (depending on the circumstances) are more likely than whites to be online:

The report found that nearly half of all African-Americans and English-speaking Hispanics (the study did not include a Spanish-language option) were using mobile phones or other hand-held devices to surf the Web and send e-mail messages. By comparison, just 28 percent of white Americans reported ever going online using a mobile device.

Click here to view photos:

Not only are African-Americans the most active users of mobile Internet, they are also the fastest growing group to adopt the technology: the percentage of African-Americans using mobile phones or another type of connected gadget to share e-mail, exchange instant messages and access the Internet for information on an average day has more than doubled since late 2007, jumping to 29 percent, from 12 percent.

Click here to read more.

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From NYTimes.com:

BOSTON — After nine years of regulatory review, the federal government gave the green light Wednesday to the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a sprawling project off the coast of Cape Cod.

The approval of the 130-turbine farm gives a significant boost to the nascent offshore wind industry in the United States, which has lagged far behind Europe and China in harnessing the strong and steady power of ocean breezes to provide electricity to homes and businesses.

With Gov. Deval Patrick standing beside him, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced at a news conference at the Massachusetts Statehouse that the government had approved a permit for Cape Wind Associates, a private venture, to build the farm.

“I am approving the Cape Wind project,” Mr. Salazar said. “This will be the first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast.”

Click here to read more.

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It was a silent call to arms: an easy-to-overlook message urging New Jersey students to take a stand against the budget cuts that threaten class sizes and choices as well as after-school activities. But some 18,000 students accepted the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.

The protest disrupted classroom routines and standardized testing in some of the state’s biggest and best-known school districts, offering a real-life civics lesson that unfolded on lawns, sidewalks, parking lots and football fields.

Click here to view photos:

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto, an 18-year-old aspiring actress and a college freshman, and came a week after voters rejected 58 percent of school district budgets put to a vote across the state (not all districts have a direct budget vote).

“All I did was make a Facebook page,” said Ms. Lauto, who graduated last year from Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, N.J. “Anyone who has an opinion could do that and have their opinion heard. I would love to see kids in high school step up and start their own protests and change things in their own way.”

Click here to read more.

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HARTFORD, Conn. — Politicians long ago discovered the uses of Facebook. East Haven Mayor April Capone Almon found something else there: a constituent who needed her kidney.

Capone Almon, 35, had more than 1,600 “friends” on Facebook last year when she saw one of them, Carlos Sanchez, post a status update saying his friends and relatives had all been tested and couldn’t donate a kidney.

She knew him casually through activities and friends in the New Haven suburb of East Haven, but they weren’t so close that she had heard he was ill.

Sanchez, a 44-year-old father whose kidneys were failing because of diabetes, sent out the request on Facebook only hesitantly and on his doctor’s suggestion. He worried people might pity him — and certainly hadn’t pinned his hopes on finding a donor that way.

He didn’t have long to wait. Capone Almon was the first person to respond.

RELATED: GOOD NEWS: Black “Wonder Twins” Break Records On Exam

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“I sent him a private message and just said, ‘Hey, I’ll try. I’ll get tested,’” Capone Almon said Wednesday. “I really felt from the very beginning that I was going to be a match and a donor. I don’t know why, but I just knew it.”

Sanchez had no such certainty.

“I thought she was joking. The mayor of East Haven would offer me her kidney?” said Sanchez, an office administrator. “She responded back and said, ‘I am serious, I am willing to get tested.’

“I wasn’t putting too much faith in it,” he said. “I didn’t want to get my hopes high. But at a point she made me feel so comfortable that I started feeling maybe this was meant to be.”

Capone Almon, a Democrat, was running for a second term as mayor at the time but kept the details of her medical plans a secret. She won the election as they awaited word on when she could donate the kidney, saying they grew as close as family during the lull.

“I know he voted for me, too,” she joked.

The operation was set only after Capone Almon passed a battery of tests and was given a long explanation of the process, which involved three small incisions near her ribcage and a scar similar to that of a cesarean section.

“What the doctors said to me is, ‘Your recipient is already sick and we’re not going to make you sick to make him somewhat better,’” she said. “They do not compromise the donor’s health in any way, shape or form.”

Their tenuous connection was cemented into a lasting bond April 8, when doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital removed Capone Almon’s left kidney and transplanted it into Sanchez.

RELATED: GOOD NEWS: NYC Students Comment On Social Issues Through Citywide Art Exhibition

They were released from the hospital in less than a week and are expected to make full recoveries. His insurance paid for both their surgeries, and the mayor is back on the job in this middle-class city of about 30,000.

Capone Almon said that she fields questions almost daily from people asking whether she’s worried her one remaining kidney might someday fail, but that she’s confident enough in modern medicine and her own health — especially after the numerous tests — that she barely gives it a thought.

“I don’t want people to see this as something larger than life,” she said. “There’s nothing special about me. Anybody can try to do this, and if it’s meant to be, you’ll be a match and a donor and you can really help someone.”

Michael Lawlor, an East Haven attorney and longtime friend of Capone Almon’s, said she kept the details of her plans private for a long time, even as he and others quizzed her to ensure she recognized the serious nature of the donation.

“I remember saying, ‘Wow, that’s really something. I wonder if she’s really thought through the fact that it might actually be a match,’” said Lawlor, the area’s state representative to the General Assembly.

“Almost everybody says the same thing: I don’t know if I would do that if it wasn’t a relative … but she said, ‘No problem,’” he said. “When she found out she was a match, she was genuinely happy and truly excited to do it.”

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ATLANTA (AP) — Spelman College will use a $1 million grant to increase the number of engineers who are black women.

Officials announced Friday that the historically black women’s college got a grant from ExxonMobil. It will allow the college to offer scholarships to women interested in technology-related programs.

The college says six students majoring in a targeted science or math areas will be selected annually as ExxonMobil Scholars. In addition to the scholarship, they will receive mentoring, internships, research training and access to labs at Spelman and Georgia Tech.

The college is already ranked as one of the leading producers of black females who go on to earn doctoral degrees in science and engineering.

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And Obama on Thursday will also try to explain why he aborted his predecessor’s return-to-the moon plan in favor of a complicated system of public-and-private flights that would go elsewhere in space, with details still to be worked out.

It’s a tough sell. So Obama is bringing deal sweeteners with him to Kennedy Space Center, pitching work that will save jobs, provide training for others and extend the life of the international space station.

Click here to view photos of the Top Newsmakers:

And he’s doing it on what once was the home turf of his most prominent critics.

RELATED: First Black Astronaut Announces Free Science Camp

This is the place where astronauts Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan became American heroes. And they’re all opposed to his ideas, warning they will end America’s supremacy in space.

Obama will speak in the building the Apollo astronauts lived in before they launched.

Obama will outline a strategy that “will provide more jobs for the area, greater investment in innovation, more astronaut time in space, more rockets launching sooner, and a more ambitious and sustainable space program for America’s future,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The Obama space plan relies on private companies to fly to the space station, giving them almost $6 billion to build their own rockets and ships. It also extends the space station’s life by five years and puts billions into research to eventually develop new government rocket ships for future missions to a nearby asteroid, the moon, Martian moons or other points in space. Those stops would be stepping stones on an eventual mission to Mars.

This all happens as the orbiting space shuttle Discovery winds down a day of resupplying the space station.

After Discovery lands, there are just three more shuttle flights, a retirement ordered by then-President George W. Bush in 2004 to pay for the return-to-the-moon mission, dubbed “Apollo on steroids.” This year, Obama canceled the moon mission, called Constellation, saying it was not sustainable and was long underfunded.

RELATED: First Black Man In Space Inducted Into Astronaut Hall Of Fame

But to Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan this was killing more than a moon program, but the entire American manned space program.

“Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity,” the three Apollo veterans wrote in a letter to the media. “America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space.”

To counter, the administration brought out Armstrong’s Apollo 11 crewmate Buzz Aldrin, who in a statement said, “The steps we will be taking in following the president’s direction will best position NASA and other space agencies to ultimately send humans to Mars and other exciting destinations as quickly as possible.”

Earlier this week, the administration said it would rescue a small part of the moon program: its Orion crew capsule. But instead of taking four astronauts to the moon, the not-yet-built Orion will be slimmed down and used as an emergency escape pod on the space station.

When Obama speaks Thursday afternoon, he will be in the vast launch complex’s Operations and Checkout building. It is the place where Orion is scheduled to be eventually prepared for launch.

RELATED: Obama Names Black Man Head Of NASA

Technically, this is more than a speech. It is a space conference, organized by the White House, with four sessions after the president talks to go into more depth about the details and challenges ahead.

Obama becomes the first sitting president in 12 years to visit Kennedy Space Center, but he won’t stay long. After a couple hours he’ll jet to Miami and spend more time in South Florida at two Democratic National Committee fundraisers.

Google search suggestions can often provide a pretty funny window into the human mind by revealing the bizarre questions people frequently ask. Just typing “why” into the search box yields such gems as “Why can’t I own a Canadian?” and “Why is my poop green?” But amid the comedy, Google can also reveal the host of racial curiosities searchers have, as typing in just “why do b” leads to suggestions like “Why do black people love fried chicken?” and “Why do black people have weird names?” even alongside the more innocuous “Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear lyrics.” So even though this latest racial search suggestion was caused by a hacker, it’s doubtful anyone was terribly surprised by its appearance. – NewsOne Staff

From the Telegraph:

Google offered “Why are black people so ugly?” as a search suggestion after hackers avoided the firm’s filtering process.

RELATED: Google Explains Offensive Michelle Obama Image Results Via Ad

The question appeared when internet users typed in the word “why” and Google offered the question in full as one of its suggestions for what you may be about to write.

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The firm has extensive filters which are intended to remove offensive suggestions but hackers appear to have got around the controls and web users picked up on it.

Warren Degallerie, 23, said: “I was helping my nine-year-old niece with her homework. Before she knew it that line had appeared. We are both black and I couldn’t believe how something like that could be allowed to happen.

“I had to try to explain to a young girl how Google could let it appear.”

RELATED: Is Facebook A Breeding Ground For Racists?

He contacted The Sun newspaper which alerted Google and the glitch was fixed.

By Monday morning the automatic suggestion had disappeared. Users typing in “why” were offered options including “why am i tired” and “why do cats purr”.

However, there remained the race-related question “why are michael jackson’s kids white”.

Click here to read more.

From WSJ.com:

More human-rights groups are expressing concern about the use of social-networking sites to spread racism.

Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Sunday, three groups in Europe issued a statement indicating alarm at the use of social-networking sites to advance “racist and xenophobic views, especially among young people.” And last week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center released a report saying that racist and terrorist groups were relying more on social networks than they have before.

This is the second year that the Wiesenthal Center’s annual report covering hate groups on the Internet has highlighted the use of social networking. And Facebook last year faced questions about Holocaust-denial groups using its site.

Jessie Daniels, a professor at Hunter College in New York and the author of “Cyber Racism,” says racist groups online often use what she describes as “cloaking” to recruit people to their way of thinking. They may direct people to a site that calls itself educational and does not have any obvious ties to well-known racist groups. But the information on the site will be focused on topics such as Holocaust denial or repeal of civil rights legislation.

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Click here to read more.

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A Tennessee-based public relations executive lost his job after forwarding an email that contained images comparing First Lady Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee. While this isn’t the first time that people sending racist emails have been implicated, it is still shocking each and every time.

Watch video after the gallery…

Check out the CNN video below:

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If technology and gadgets are your thing, then you should check out BlackPlanet Future Tech. You can join the group here.

From USAToday.com:

Is each White House tweet one for the record books?

That’s the question being posed to its press office, which has increased its presence on Twitter of late — specifically in the person of Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman who joined the ranks of tweeters last week.

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Since all written and verbal communications of the White House are subject to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, it’s long been known that e-mails sent to and from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would eventually be made available to historians.

But what of tweets? And the Twitter sites the tweeter visits? And the people who follow the tweeter on Twitter?

“I will ask the lawyers,” said Gibbs, who confessed that he’s a technological prisoner of the “computer guys” at the White House.

Click here to read more.

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From BBC.com:

For social-media wannabes, it is surely the job of a lifetime: tweeting for the most powerful man on earth.

The job of social-networks manager for President Barack Obama comes with a warning that this is not a nine-to-five posting and is for a candidate with “strong familiarity with social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc”. No direct mention of Google Buzz in the current job ad, but I’m sure it will be there in the future.

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The president, who is attributed with a great deal of success in his use of social networking during his election campaign, admitted to Chinese students last year that he himself does not tweet since he finds his thumbs too clumsy to type on the phone..

Click here to read more.

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From Marketwatch.com:

HOUSTON, Feb 09, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr., the first African American to walk in space, and ExxonMobil announced today that more than 1,500 middle school students will participate in free science camps this summer.

The ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camps will be hosted in 30 universities across the country. The announcement came on the 15th anniversary of Dr. Harris’ historic space walk on Feb. 9, 1995 while aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

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“Much in my life has changed since that historic day, but one constant is my passion to make a difference with today’s students, especially kids who have similar backgrounds to mine,” Harris said. “This year’s summer science camps will give students a chance to learn about mathematics and science, more about themselves and about life on a college campus. Most importantly, campers learn that they have the power to achieve their dreams whatever they may be.”

Click here to read more.

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From BlackWeb20.com:

I can’t believe we are going into 2010 already. It seems like just yesterday when we were making predictions for 2008 and 2009. This past year has been really exciting and there have been clear changes in how business on the web is being done.  As we try to keep up with what’s going on in the space here are some things to look out for in 2010:

Real-time gets Real.

Real time data came in with a bang in 2009 and will will continue to go strong in 2010. You will start to see this type of information displayed in more places. There are always interesting things going on in the web space in general and real time will be the belle of the ball in the coming year. Expect to see (and seize opportunity) where real time data has context. In 2010 there will be less randomness and more real time data that actually makes sense to what you are doing, what you are looking for, and where you are at (location).
Opportunity:  Think of ways to exploit real-time data that already exists via API’s contextually…and build it.

Live Video and Web Video Goes Strong

Video is yet another super exciting area to watch. Between web video converging with Broadcast and visa versa we should also see quality content being produced from independents. This includes scripted, documentary style, and live video. This past year we saw BET go out on a limb and launch Buppies, which has gotten great reviews, I expect to see more of that in the “Urban” space. More excitingly I expect to see Live Video come on the scene in respect to how broadcasters will use this type of content online.
Opportunity:  Live video programming is something that has yet to be mastered in the “Urban” space.  Carpe Diem.

The Rise of New Media as a Business.

New Media will start to get the respect they have been looking for and received at the tail end of 2009 in the “Urban” space. Many up and coming media moguls will be respected more as a business which should lead to greater activity in business development, distribution, and other forms of partnerships. This of course will put more pressure on those who are trying to enter new media to focus on what their business model is.
Opportunity:  Be cleaver with how you structure your deals.  Opportunity can be found in most places.

The Location Based Service…with Context.

I mentioned context above when I talked about real-time. Context will be no stranger to location based services in 2010 either. Just like “What are you doing?” got played out where you check-in at has already begun to get played out. In 2010 you won’t need to just check-in somewhere you’ll need to try and create experiences in real life with services like Foursquare and Gowalla.
Opportunity: If you’re a traditional brick and mortar business there is opportunity here to engage with your customers (or potential customers) in this way.  Check out this post to see what I mean.

And the Band Blog Played On.

If you got sick of seeing Blog-like sites being mimicked on you favorite magazine site you may as well go ahead and grab your brown paper bag.  It will continue in 2010.  There will actually be a shift where Big Media wants to put on a New Media face, New Media will look less like blogs and more like Blogazines.  Blogazine being much cooler than an e-zine  but a mix between a blog and traditional magazine site.  Both parties will likely meet in the middle and become The New Black Media.
Opportunity:  Don’t focus on just building a great content site, focus on building a great brand and you will be a contender.

Click here to read more.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

We got a lot of great gadgets in the 2000s, but there were some major flops, too.

From music-playing tasers to wearable computers, we’ve taken a look back at the biggest gadget “fails” of the decade — and why they just don’t make the cut.

Check out our picks for the worst gadgets of 2000-2009 in the slideshow below.

Click here to read more.

More BEST OFs HERE!

From MSNBC:

A video posted on YouTube shows HP’s facial recognition software tracking the movements of a white face, but not a black one, something the video’s maker calls “racist,” but the computer giant says is definitely not.

“Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers who are ethnically diverse and live and work around the world,” an HP blog. “That’s why when issues surface, we take them seriously and work hard to understand the root causes.”

A Texas man, Desi Cryer, who is black, was at work in a retail store with a fellow employee who is white when the two recorded a test of the facial recognition software on a new HP computer and posted the result on YouTube.

Click here to read more.

Watch the video:

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Though the parade of Tiger Woods’ ex-lovers revealing their dalliances to the press seems to have tapered off, the intimate details of his many affairs keep on coming.

Thanks to the wonders of technology — email, voicemail, text messaging, online video — his mistresses have been able to share with the world the private interactions they had with the golfer. Here’s a rundown of the many ways Tiger’s dirty laundry has been technologically aired out:

Voicemail

In this leaked voicemail, Tiger calls on-and-off girlfriend Jaimee Grubbs to ask that she remove her name from her outgoing message before his wife calls her. Listen:

Email
The NY Daily News has excerpts from emails Tiger sent to Rachel Uchitel. Read some of his lovelorn angst:

“I know it’s brutal on you that you can’t be with me all the time, I get it. It [...] kills me, too. I finally found someone I connect with, someone I have never found like this. Not even at home. You want someone to witness your life. I want you to lay next to me, lay on me or where ever you want to lay. [...] Why didn’t we find each other years ago. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.” [SOURCE: NY Daily News]

Text Messages

The Daily News also got its hands on flirtatious text messages exchanged between Tiger and Jaimee Grubbs:

JG: “i only watch football”

TW: “figured you would say that. Big black guys”

JG: “u are my first, last and only black guy! U should feel special”

TW: “why do I not believe that”

[SOURCE: NY Daily News]

Video

Holly Sampson, an adult film star and one of Tiger’s alleged lovers, discussed her encounter with the golfer in an online video interview last May. In it, she says:

“Me and my girlfriends did a bachelor party for Tiger and it was amazing. And then he picked me to go in the room. I have to say he was really good. [...] He’s like the whitest black boy you’ve ever met. His teeth are perfect and he’s the perfect gentleman. He’s beautiful.” [SOURCE: NY Post]

The video of the interview (NSFW) is available at TMZ.com.

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SEATTLE – Food banks across the country are undergoing a high-tech revolution, adopting sophisticated databases, bar coding, GPS tracking, automated warehouses and other technologies used in the food industry that increasingly supplies their goods.

It’s a long way from handing out macaroni and canned soup from a church basement.

While more people can be fed through these innovations, food bank directors say it’s also a sad acknowledgment that hunger has become a huge and seemingly unending problem.

“What we tell people a lot is that we are a food distribution businesswrapped in an altruistic skin,” says Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas.

Her food bank, along with Food Lifeline in Seattle and the Food Bank ofCentral New York in East Syracuse, are testing a $60 million effort by Feeding America, an umbrella organization for about 200 U.S. food banks, to create a state-of-the-art national computer network that will greatly automate services.

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The Athena Project, which started rolling out this summer, will let food banks upgrade and standardize accounting, inventory and donor software, take full advantage of the Internet, and manage pickups and deliveries much the same way FedEx or UPS track packages. Chicago-based Feeding America is installing the systems at no charge and separately from its operating budget, thanks in part to financial and in-kind donations, says Kevin Lutz, vice president for technology.

For local pantries and kitchens — and the people at their doors — it should mean more food and the kind they actually like and need, Pruitt and others say. Donors, from agribusinesses to the 10-year-old collecting cans at a birthday party, can be assured that less is being spent on overhead and more on helping the hungry.

“We are going to gain so much efficiency,” says Linda Nageotte, Food Lifeline’s president and CEO. “We’re going to be able to provide so much better accountability, and this also really increases our credibility.”

Lutz says that when the project is completed in five years, it could save food banks up to four times its $60 million cost — money that could go toward food and other services.

Since the first food bank, St. Mary’s in Phoenix, opened in 1967, many in the movement hoped they would soon work themselves out of business, Pruitt said. Instead, most agencies have become mainstays of their communities, supplying tons of food to pantries, soup kitchens and other local programs.

“In 1982, when this food bank opened, their first year of distribution was 400,000 pounds,” Pruitt said, of her Dallas-based organization. “We now do that in one day.”

The recession has only made things worse. Pruitt estimates food demand in her area has grown by a third in the past year. Nationally, Feeding America says the 63,000 local agencies served by its food banks aid more than 25 million people annually.

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Without the new technology, “We just simply couldn’t do what we do,” says Carol Schneider, spokeswoman for the Food Bank For New York City.

In 2002, the food bank, which handles about 60 million pounds of food each year, replaced its paper system with a bar code system and wireless network at its 90,000 square-foot warehouse in the Bronx.

Food banks are trying to provide more fresh meat and produce, much of it gathered unsold from supermarkets. Pruitt says that means her 17 trucks have to quickly reach 126 individual stores in addition to distribution centers and scores of food drives each week — almost impossible without computer scheduling.

Besides New York, some larger food banks, including St. Mary’s and, not surprisingly, Silicon Valley‘sSecond Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, have already embraced technology. The problem, Lutz says, has been making it widespread, standardized and interconnected.

For Nageotte, it can’t come soon enough. In September, Food Lifeline received all new computers andenterprise management software — a huge change, she said, from years of making do.

“We had a cobbled-together system — some new computers, some old, some worked well, some were barely limping,” she said. Records were in five separate databases “and none of them talk to one another.”

Athena, she and others say, opens a world of possibilities:

• GPS tracking and instant communication to send trucks on the most efficient routes. Lutz says this alone can cut transportation costs by 40 percent. Food Lifeline is equipping drivers with smart phones that eventually could scan in donations as they are picked up.

• Inventory management systems to track every food item, from truckloads of potatoes to individually donated cans. This not only saves time and reduces waste, but is a safeguard for product recalls.

• Generating lists of food, money and volunteer hours for donors, handy at tax time.

• Common software and backup computer servers, allowing agencies to trade or divert food, share donor information or step in if a food bank is overwhelmed by a disaster.

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Such innovations aid a strategy that “needs to be twofold,” she says. “It needs to be about feeding the people who are standing in line better and it needs to be about making the line shorter.”