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An interesting initiative that helps educate children from BME groups about fire safety through digitali art! They then act as fire-safety ambassadors to the non-english speaking members of their community.

http://sccplugins.sheffield.gov.uk/press/news/aRelease.asp?akey=3769&Mon=01/08/2006

Hello, I'm Brigit, folly's Operations Assistant, responsible for book-keeping and general administration, although I shan't be sharing my filing expertise with you all here ;)

My key interest is sociology, and I hope to provide some interesting perspectives on folly's aim to explore art through technology.

First up, however, is more organisational ... folly are currently implementing a Race Equality Action Plan, part of which is putting extra effort in to opening up communication with a more diverse audience....so I read with interest and astonishment Jonah Albert's article about the National Gallery's mainly white audience and the massive response it received....be prepared to be really shocked at some openly racist comments. It really shows how emotive an issue race is....

For a while the terms and conditions for voice over IPi (VoIPi) and video conferencingi programs (you did read it when you clicked 'Accept' didn't you?) have been somewhat confusing over precisely what you are allowed to do with them.  For example the end useri agreement for ineen says

'License. Subject to the terms of this EULA, INEEN hereby grants You a limited, personal, non-commercial (at home or at work), non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-assignable, free of charge license to download, install and use the Software and Service on Your computer or PDA, for the sole purpose of internet telephony applications and any other applications that may be explicitly provided by INEEN.' (my emphasis).

Apparently the FBI have been invited to look around SecondLife to make sure there isn't anything going on that they don't like.  Well, I guess people wanted realism.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/fbi_second_life_gambling/

...then be your own.  With http://www.sonopia.com you can have your mobile phone networki.  Well, virtuali one anyway.  For the charity that has everything, getting your supporters to take out an own brand credit card is so passé, now they can sign up for one of your mobile phones.  The actual network is provided by Verizon, oh and is only available in the US at the moment, but obviously only minor details.  It'll be great fun when your members start calling for technical support.

An interesting model for us to look at especially in relation to the SCIC and our own capital development.  However this lab is still suffering from revenue underfunding itself.

A really exciting interdisciplinary research lab at Newcastle University http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/

Set in the Grade II Listed Grand Assembly Rooms on King’s Walk, Culture Lab houses magnificently refurbished open-plan research spaces, a "live events" space, and dedicated electronics, multimedia and sound workshop spaces.

A project from Mobile Radicals, based up at the InfoLab at Lanc Uni gets a feature on the popular IT & Science news site The Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/mobislinger_beta/

Amazing. Early days maybe, but amazing.

This desk-top "printer" prints 3D objects... albeit it with a limited range of materials, so far.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2044607,00.html

The inventors make the grand claim that: "I think that within 10 years private individuals will be able to make for themselves virtually any manufactured product that is today sold by industry. I sometimes wonder if politicians realise that the entire basis of the human economy is about to undergo the biggest change since the invention of money."

http://media.guardian.co.uk/changingmediasummit

Some Blogi Links -

When it comes to Web 2.0, social activity has become a product unto itself - Kevin Anderson

http://strange.corante.com/archives/2007/03/22/guardian_changing_media_business_model_for_free_content.php

The open sourcei methodology for software development has made a great success out of a culture of trust, respect and gifts. This makes a sharp contrast to the efforts of music corporations to criminalise their customers for daring to share their legally purchased music, or even wanting to play it in different formats. One online music site is trying to apply something of the FOSS philosophy to music downloads, and they even encourage you to share any downloads you purchase with three friends. Saying that, they don't debase the downloads with digitali rights management (DRM), treating their customers as trustworthy and honest. Makes a nice change.