Category: General

It looks like Nicholas Negroponte has stepped down as Chairman of MIT’s Media Lab to pursue the $100 Laptop Initiative. I’ve covered the $100 Laptop Initiative fairly well on this blog– here are a collection of links to previous posts: Hal Varian Plugs the $100 Laptop In The NY Times Technology Review Defends the $100… Continue reading Negroponte Steps Down From MIT Media Lab to Pursue $100 Laptop Initiative

A few weeks ago, Google made an agreement with the Chinese government to remove specific websites from its search engine in return for getting unblocked access to China’s internet users. You can read more about it in this BBC News article from Jan 25th. Since the announcement, there has been significant “buzz” in the blogosphere… Continue reading Google and Social Responsibility in China

The NY Times published (sub. req.) a piece today by Hal Varian, a well known economist based out of the University of California at Berkeley. I can’t seem to get off this topic, because I think its an interesting case study on approaches in social entrepreneurship (I’ll go into more detail in a moment). But… Continue reading Hal Varian Plugs the $100 Laptop In The NY Times

Many investors have identified investment in water rights as the next big thing and it makes sense– as the population grows, we need more drinking water. More future demand means rise in price. Here is an article that shows us just exactly how much “waste” today’s bottled water market produces. Its an interesting read and… Continue reading Inefficiencies– The Bottled Water Industry

Last week in Davos, Microsoft’s Craig Mundie commented that using cell phones might be a more sustainable approach than the development and deployment of the $100 laptop project for solving the digital divide problem . A new Technology Review article defends the laptop, and offers some opinions of researchers and professors involved with the project.… Continue reading Technology Review Defends the $100 Laptop

Google released their fourth quarter 2005 earnings today at 1:30PM Pacific Time. To summarize, although Google performed spectacularly, they didn’t please Wall Street, resulting in after hours trading activity that shaved 10-20% off the stock price. This translates into a 60-70 dollar decline in the stock price. Its a BIG deal when stuff like this… Continue reading Google Misses Earnings, Partly Because of the Cost of Creating Google Foundation

Human rights activist and former wife of Martin Luther King Jr. has passed away. Link here to AP article: …in 1969, founded the multimillion-dollar Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. King saw to it that the center became deeply involved with the issues she said breed violence — hunger, unemployment, voting rights… Continue reading In Memory of Coretta Scott King

Some more good news came out today from Davos about how Microsoft is trying to tackle the problem of the growing digital divide. Its exciting to hear that other organizations are thinking about how to solve this problem (thanks to Negroponte and his $100 Laptop Project for building the momentum). I like how Microsoft is… Continue reading Microsoft Pitching In To Close the Digital Divide: Cell Phone Based Internet Connection