Seven Italian scientists have been convicted of manslaughter for failing to predict and warn residents of a deadly 2009 earthquake in the city of L’Aquila. The scientific panel of the Grand Commission on High Risks faces 6 years of imprisonment for “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” related to whether tremors weeks before the earthquake should have been grounds for evacuation. “Earthquakes cannot be predicted, and these scientists should not even have been on trial,” said Oxford University Earth Scientist, John Elliott.

Critics worry that the conviction, which still requires another level of appeals under Italian law, will chill other scientists from all forms of public policy. “If the scientific community is to be penalised for making predictions that turn out to be incorrect, or for not accurately predicting an event that subsequently occurs, then scientific endeavour will be restricted to certainties only and the benefits that are associated with findings from medicine to physics will be stalled,” said Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at the UK’s Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Witnesses say the scientific judgment was negligent, ultimately causing people to stay when their intuition told them to flee. Guido Fioravanti recalls why her mother made the tragic decision to stay, “I remember the fear in her voice. On other occasions they would have fled but that night, with my father, they repeated to themselves what the risk commission had said. And they stayed.”

The pending conviction has potentially dangerous consequences for the scientific community. What do you think of the decision?

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This almost sounds too good to be true: a Japanese company called TIS&Partners [JP] has developed a new kind of construction material that’s supposedly “better” than concrete (by some measures, at least). Dubbed “CO2 Structure”, the material hardens in about a day, as opposed to the 28 days it takes for concrete to cure to 100% of its strength.

TIS&Partners says bricks consisting of the material can be formed in about a minute. After adding organic substances, CO2 Structure’s tensile strength is said to be “at least” 2.5 higher than that of concrete. In other words, the material not only hardens quickly, it’s also more “stable” than concrete.

TIS&Partners says that their material could be used to reinforce structures in buildings in a quick manner, for example those that were damaged by the earthquake that hit Japan back in March.

This video, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo, provides more insight on CO2 Structure:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Windows 7 is now the most prevalent – if not most popular – desktop OS with Gartner estimating that 42% of current PCs will run the OS while 94% of new machines will run Win7.

In comparison, OS X got 4% of the pie while Linux is firmly at 2%. Even IT departments are starting massive roll-outs of Win7 to their desktops, a move that has pushed the fairly new OS into the car bird seat. However, Gartner expects this to be the last time a standalone OS image is installed on business PCs as IT departments move towards hosted computing and virtualization.

Not everything is sunshine and roses, however:

“Steady improvements in IT budgets in 2010 and 2011 are helping to accelerate the deployment of Windows 7 in enterprise markets in the U.S. and Asia/Pacific, where Windows 7 migrations started in large volume from 4Q10,” said Annette Jump, research director at Gartner. “However, the economic uncertainties in Western Europe, political instability in selected Middle East and Africa (MEA) countries and the economic slowdown in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 will likely lead to slightly late and slow deployment for Windows 7 across those regions.”

You can check out the report here if you’re a subscriber but generally Windows is still strong even in the face of OS X and mobile popularity.

The most interesting statistic I think will be how fast Chrome OS overtakes Windows in the low end of the PC/laptop world. I also wonder how much WinXP is still floating around out there, let alone how many WinCE and NT implementations still exist.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Combining social games with a cause has become a popular way to engage game players on Facebook with raising money for various philanthropic causes. For example, Zynga has raised funds via its games for the earthquake relief efforts in both Japan and Haiti over the past few years. Startup Good World Games is developing Facebook games devoted purely to marrying the power of causes with the viral explosion of social gaming. The startup’s first Facebook game, MyConservationPark, allows you to protect an endangered animal from environmental and human threats while enriching the park with fauna and flora to create a sustainable habitat.

There are 2 modes of Play in the game: Play and Decorate. In Play mode, new challenges constantly appear that you must overcome in order to save and protect your endangered species (i.e. there’s a fire in your park, hire a firefighter to put it out) In this mode, your eco-system and hero levels are affected by your success in conquering these challenges.

In Decorate mode, you can create a haven for your species and add people and creatures, trees, food and water, watchtowers and sheds, and arrange your park as you see fit. You can purchase virtual good such as park rangers, native species such as antelopes, structures such as watchtowers and camps, flora (indigenous trees and bushes), water and insects.

All purchases of virtual goods directly benefit Good World Games’ non-profit partners with 15% of in-game purchase revenue donated to select causes. Each park benefits a different partner, which include Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Sea Shepherd, Wildaid and Orangutan Outreach. You can see what percent of revenue from your game interactions have been donated as well.

Each park contains species native to its location, with different art and challenges. And top scorers in game will, on a periodic basis, receive real world rewards such as an all-expenses paid trip to help (as a volunteer) one of the non-profit partners in the field.

Eventually Good World Games plans to roll out similar games that allow Facebook users to play games towards social good.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Everyone’s favorite under-estimator of social media, Malcolm Gladwell, might get a chuckle out of Amazon’s EC2 problems this week. First, they took out Foursquare, Reddit and Quora service, as TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher reported yesterday. The disaster in the cloud also put a stop to those who would Tweet the revolution via Act.ly, a site that gets petitions going virally, online.

The site and service was still out of order as of publication. Act.ly founder Jim Gilliam said:

“We usually get several thousand activism tweets a day. That hasn’t happened for 36 hours, because of these issues with Amazon and another service provider we use, Heroku, also effected. I can’t access the data to tell you what our petition creation, retweets and general user interactions looked like last year on Earth Day, because I don’t have access right now. But the timing on something like this is a bit of a shame, really.”

According to Gilliam, petition creation and sharing tends to spike sharply around particular events, from the earthquake in Japan, to a calendar holiday like Earth Day. Act.ly petitions in the past have ranged from environmental to entertaining. They have encouraged “web citizens” to demand that phone manufacturers source materials used in their devices sustainably, or to get the EPA to regulate ostensibly harmful pesticides and food additives more carefully.

Staff members at The Young Turks, the popular political news series and site, regularly send out Act.ly petitions, and got in touch with Gilliam to vent and gripe about the Earth Day blackout.

Gilliam is also the founder of NationBuilder.com, a site that he says is ironically not effected by the problems in the cloud.

Anyone can use Act.ly to whip up awareness and inspire problem solving around a cause, online — at least when it’s up and running.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

When disasters of scale happen, like the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan and sent tsunamis rippling across the globe last month, one of our first reactions is to immediately try to establish contact with those we care about who might have been affected. By phone or by email, by whatever means possible, we scramble to get in touch.

Of course, natural disasters often wreak havoc on our lines of communication and, with many people simultaneously attempting to reach loved ones, cellular networks quickly become overloaded. I, personally, will never forget the anxiety of struggling to find and reach relatives in Lower Manhattan immediately following the September 11th attacks.

Unfortunately, the disaster in Japan was no different. Phone lines were either down or those that were available quickly became overloaded with calls, and many people had to spend anxious hours waiting to find out if loved ones were alive and safe.

Yet, while technology sometimes has the tendency to abandon us in moments of need, it is also a tool that reunites us. We learned today that, TekTrak, a mobile tracking and security app, provided one Japanese family with this very ability following the March 11 quake. The family (who asked to remain anonymous) was unable to locate their daughter in the disorder, who was at school over an hour from where they lived — or to reach her on the phone.

But, because the app works in the background of a phone’s OS, using the 3 hardware components already built into most smartphones (cellular, GPS, and WiFi) to pinpoint its location, the girl’s parents were able to go onto TekTrak’s website to find their daughter’s location. And, once they saw the timestamps in the app’s location history feature, they knew she was okay, because they could see that she had been moving since the earthquake had struck.

The father said that it usually took his daughter an hour to return home by bus from school, but on March 11th, it took more than seven hours. Luckily, the worried parents were able to follow her progress home using the app’s web maps.

Originally he uploaded the app on his daughter’s phone, he said, to prevent against theft, as the $5 app both enables users to monitor the location of their device at all times and to secure sensitive or private information stored on the phone.

Sometimes it takes a disaster to show us the areas of true weakness within our infrastructures, be they communication, transportation, or electrical — and, on the flip side — they sometimes reveal applications or strengths we didn’t necessarily know we had. Obviously, apps that help us stay connected (and aid in search and location) in the event one method of communication disappears can be extremely valuable in emergency situations.

So, if your phone should turn off and you are unable to locate it directly, TekTrak allows you to see where the phone was last located (and check location history). The app also comes with a remote ringer feature that allows users to locate their device once they are within close proximity of the phone. Or, if you don’t think you can retrieve the device from that location, users will soon be able to send remote messages to the phone in the hope the person who may have the phone will respond, founders Arik Waldman and Luka Sklizovic said.

Albeit a single case, it is great to see an example of technology not only allowing people to reunite with their phones — but, more importantly — their loved ones. For more info on the story, or the app itself, you can check out TekTrak’s blog here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

I am currently in Austin at SXSW 2011, but mentally absent: I was at Tokyo airport on Friday to fly off to Texas, on my way to the gate, when the earthquake hit Japan (where I am based). As everybody knows by now, the quake marked the biggest disaster in Japan’s history after WWII, leaving thousands of people dead, wounded or homeless. After 6 years of living in Japan and being there when it happened, I, too, am devastated.

The Japan delegation for SXSW Interactive consists of about 10 people, and in the light of what was and still is happening in their home country, everybody toughed it out, took part in their panels and did a great job. (I know because I got a ticket at a later date and luckily was able to moderate two panels related to Japanese tech and speak at another one. I was too late to attend the first Japan panel.)

One of the speakers, Takahito Iguchi from Tonchidot (the company behind mobile app DOMO), says that the idea was to show the world that Japan won’t give up in the light of the disaster and to send a signal of encouragement back home. And what’s more, literally all of the speakers’ companies quickly reacted and started to collect donations for the victims of the disaster.

Just a few examples:
Iguchi and another SXSW speaker, Ryo Shimizu (CEO of Tokyo-based tech company Ubiquitous Entertainment) decided to not leave SXSW after their panels but rather cooperate with the event organizers to collect donations from attendees – who thankfully donated thousands of dollars so far (here is Shimizu’s very personal blog post about the earthquake and SXSW 2011 for the Japanese delegates).

Eiji Araki from GREE, Japan’s mobile social gaming juggernaut, says users of his platform donated over $2 million so far by buying special virtual items. That’s about the same number another SXSW panelist, Tak Miyata from Mixi (Japan’s largest real-identity social network) is reporting at this point. (More information on Japan’s SXSW delegation and their efforts to “save Japan” can be found in this article in the New York Times).

These are pretty impressive efforts, but if you now ask yourself how you can help Japan, here is a quick list of links to make it easy:

• SXSW4Japan
  (You can donate via credit card or PayPal even if you’re not an attendee – $69,000 have been collected already. Follow #SXSWcares or @SXSW4Japan for updates.)
• American Red Cross
  (All donations go to the victims of the earthquake in Japan.)
• Salvation Army
  (same as American Red Cross above)
• Japanese Red Cross Society
  (bank transfer only)
• Google Crisis Response
  (You can use Google Checkout to donate to the Japanese Red Cross and other organizations.)
• Text “Japan” or “Quake” to 80888 to donate $10 (Salvation Army)
• Text “REDCROSS” to 90999 to donate $10 (American Red Cross)

You can find a larger list of earthquake relief options here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

We heard earlier that AT&T was making calls to Japan free until between March 11 and March 31, in the wake of the devasting earthquake and tsunami in the region. Verizon is also joining in this effort and will be making calls to Japan free for most wireless and residential customers through April 10.

According to the release, all Verizon Wireless post-paid customers will receive free calling to Japan from March 11 through April 10 and will receive free text and multimedia messaging to Japan for the same time period. And Verizon Prepaid Phone Card charges for all long-distance calls placed to Japan from the United States will also be waived from March 11 until April 10. Verizon will also be providing FiOS TV customers who are not subscribed to the channel free access to TV Japan through March 17.

Like many of the carriers, Verizon also waived text message fees for text donations to non-profit organizations raising money for the earthquake and tsunami. Customers can easily make a $10 donation by simply sending a text message and may choose from 10 organizations aiding those in need in Japan.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

A massive earthquake that struck off Japan’s northeastern coast on Friday— taking 1,200 lives, with thousands still unaccounted for and ten thousand feared dead by police — also damaged multiple nuclear power plants there.

On Sunday, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said a partial meltdown at the Fukushiman Dai-ichi nuclear complex, was likely under way. The partial meltdown follows a blast on Saturday at one unit of the complex, where operators are working to cool the reactor core by injecting seawater and boron into its containment vessel.

Also on Sunday, according to the International Atomic Energy Association Japan’s Tohoku Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reported a state of emergency at a another facility, the Onagawa nuclear power plant; while its three reactors remained under control, the emergency alert was related to radioactivity readings in the area that exceeded allowable levels.

Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi reported for the Associated Press:

“More than 170,000 people had been evacuated as a precaution… Edano said the radioactivity released into the environment so far was so small it didn’t pose any health threats. A complete meltdown — the collapse of a power plant’s systems and its ability to keep temperatures under control — could release uranium and dangerous contaminants into the environment and pose major, widespread health risks.”

While facing the terrifying prospect of multiple nuclear meltdowns in their country, millions of Japanese households remain without electricity, food and water currently.

The natural disasters could have caused even more damage if not for Japan’s investments in advanced warning systems, and constant updating of building codes to deal with earthquakes, especially.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency warned of strong aftershocks ahead; their website suggests a 70 percent chance of a magnitude 7-class earthquakes through March 16, 2011.

As oil prices are skyrocketing, generally, and energy demands are rising the United States’ energy chief, Steven Chu, recently asked Congress to consider an American clean energy standard that would include nuclear along with renewable sources like solar and wind. The situation in Japan, however, underscores controversy around designating nuclear as a clean energy source.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This article was written by Lukas Biewald, CEO of CrowdFlower and Leila Janah, CEO of Samasource.

On Thursday July 8, 2010, residents of Oakland took to the streets after a jury convicted police officer Johannes Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed black youth. Race-related riots are not new to California. But this time, the first people to learn about violent incidents tied to the protests weren’t riot cops — they were the Oakland residents behind OscarGrantProtests.com, a website that allowed people near the action to map incidents of violence and view reports from others. Established in a few days, OscarGrantProtests employs crisis mapping technology from a group of open-source developers called Ushahidi, who built the software to report violence in the aftermath of the 2008 disputed Kenyan presidential election.

Ushahidi has radically altered the way we respond to disasters by placing reporting power in the hands of people who might otherwise be victims. Virtually every disaster affecting large groups of people presents the same problem: in the absence of real-time data, emergency responders don’t know where to go and when. Technology can solve this problem quickly and cheaply, but governments and relief agencies don’t often use it.

Telecommunications infrastructure is now ubiquitous — even in sub-Saharan Africa, eight out of 10 adults have access to a mobile phone. The four billion cell phones in use around the world create massive amounts of data and demand for crowdsourcing technology to aggregate, categorize, and otherwise make sense of it.

Mission 4636 provides a good example of how we can use data from mobile phones to make relief efforts more effective. In the aftermath of the January earthquake that shook the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, millions of Haitians lacked food, water and shelter. Aid workers flooded the capital, but lacked information about who needed help, and where. Voila and Digicel, Haiti’s two major telecommunications carriers, had their cell towers up and running immediately following the quake, but huge call volumes exceeded their capacity and resulted in service outages. Text messages offered a solution — texts take up less bandwidth than calls, and are much less affected by network delays.

A group of companies, including Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS, CrowdFlower and Samasource, collaborated to set up a text message hotline – “Mission 4636” – supported by the U.S. Department of State. The Haitian government collaborated with radio stations to advertise the hotline, and a few days after the disaster, anyone in Port-au-Prince could send an SMS to a toll-free number, 4636, to request help. The messages were routed to relief crews at the U.S. Coast Guard and the International Red Cross on the ground.

In the first month, Haitians sent more than 40,000 texts to 4636. But Mission 4636 ran into a problem: the messages were in Haitian Creole, but the aid workers designated to respond spoke English. Worse still, many of the texts contained location information that only Haitians familiar with the geography of Port-au-Prince could comprehend, such as references to neighborhoods or popular landmarks. Without a translation service that could operate in real-time, Mission 4636 provided little value to victims of the earthquake.

Traditionally, governments solve problems like these by hiring contractors — after major disasters, it’s not uncommon for relief agencies to spend millions of dollars building temporary call centers to handle the flood of new calls. Outsourced translation firms abound, but charge large premiums to deliver translation on a 24/7 basis. In Haiti, crowdsourcing provided an answer: we customized Ushahidi and CrowdFlower’s technology to allow hundreds of thousands of Haitians living outside the country to translate texts from Port-au-Prince in real time, and for free, via a public website. News of the site spread quickly through the Haitian Diaspora living abroad, who heard of our efforts through a grassroots media campaign The results were immediate. In the first day, Mission 4636 got a message from an overcrowded hospital that was running out of fuel. Within minutes the message was translated and desperately needed fuel was deployed.

Mass collaboration accomplished more than Creole-English translations — armchair disaster relief agents around the world also collaboratively edited maps and information about Haiti to assist aid workers. A few days after the disaster, Openstreetmap.com, a Wikipedia-like site for amateur map makers, had more accurate maps of Haiti than the U.S. Department of Defense.

Perhaps most critically, crowdsourcing provided hundreds of thousands of data points on what Haitians most needed after the earthquake. Surprisingly, after immediate needs were met, text messages sent to 4636expressed unprompted demand for something other food, water or shelter — people started asking for travay, or work. It became clear that short-form translation could create needed jobs in parts of Haiti flooded with refugees from the disaster. Samasource trained 50 people in Mirebalais, a small rural community in Haiti’s Central Plateau, to translate the 4636 messages on the web after Ushahidi volunteers categorized them by priority level. Using netbooks (small, cheap laptops) powered by a generator and a satellite Internet connection, these workers translated tens of thousands of messages, forming a kind of “virtual assembly line” with the Ushahidi volunteers.

The rapid proliferation of broadband, wireless and cell phones, coupled with new crowdsourcing technology, is completely changing the face of disaster relief. Everyone with a computer can provide crucial assistance, sifting through satellite photos, translating messages or updating maps, and most people are happy to do this free of charge — contributing to life-saving relief efforts is a powerful motivator. Mission 4636 cost less than $500,000 to design, build and deploy. At a fraction of the cost of most relief budgets, crowdsourcing can solve coordination problems on the ground. Governments and aid agencies should make it a central part of future disaster response efforts.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch