Kenya: Where Social Networks Meet Mobile Phones. When Vodafone UK sent Michael Joseph to Kenya in July 2000 to set up Safaricom, a cell-phone service operator jointly owned by Telkom Kenya, he did not expect the subscriber base to grow beyond 50,000 connections. Today, both Safaricom and rival KenCell Communications (partly owned by Vivendi) have nearly 1.3 million cell-phone subscribers.

"Wireless technology has had a tremendous effect on people's lives in Kenya," said Joseph. Topping up mobile-phone airtime using "scratch cards" is now a common activity for millions of citizens who before had to walk many miles to make a telephone call.

And the success story is not limited to this East African country. It's a growing economic phenomenon that sheds light on how emerging technology might spread across Africa in the coming years.

According to Mike Jensen, a South Africa telecommunications consultant, the number of main telephone lines in Africa grew by about 9 percent a year between 1995 and 2001. Still, the number of customers on waiting lists for phone installation clearly indicates the pent-up demand for service.

But marketing cell phones, which cost around $100, has not been taken lightly in a region where more than half the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Two words have revolutionized the spread of cell-phone usage in Africa: community access.

While most people here cannot afford a cell phone, this has not prevented thousands of poor villagers from transforming their friends and families into walking communications nodes. This setup is deeply rooted in the traditional African communal mode of living, which many urban dwellers haven't abandoned.

Francis Nyamnjoh, an associate professor in the sociology department at the University of Botswana, says African cell-phone operators are finding they can mine profits from these communal setups and, at the same time, transform telecommunications services into mass-market products.

"Although connectivity in Africa is the lowest compared to other regions of the world, the continent's sociality, interconnectedness, interdependence and conviviality make it possible for others to access the Internet and its opportunities without necessarily being connected themselves," Nyamnjoh said. [Smart Mobs]

When phones were too expensive, we had party lines. Looks like humans anywhere adapt technology to meet their needs. If a corporation is lucky, this will satisfy their needs. Otherwise, there will be a lot of dissonance apprearing. Something the Content Cartel needs to understand.  4:31:11 PM    

Is This the Face of a Terrorist?. A Pakistani jeweler says the FBI has incorrectly singled him out as a possible terror suspect. Face recognition experts back up his claim. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]

It will be interesting to see how rapidly the FBI admits that it misidentified the suspect and really has no clue what he looks like. Otherwise, we have a case where a terror suspect just happens to look like an innocent man. Assuming the Pakastani who has never left Pakistan is really innocent. Nothing on the FBI. Humans make mistakes but organizations are loath to admit them. The problem with so much government intrusion into our privacy is that mistakes can have huge consequences. But politicians are not ones who will admit mistakes. Check out Matthew Miller's column for 1-3-03. Great quote:

Whether the question is North Korea or expanded health coverage, it may take a poet to remind both politicians and citizens that humility is the fount of wisdom.

Check out Wislawa Szymborska's Nobel Speech. It reall is quite beautiful and has this very, very true passage:

When I'm asked about this on occasion, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners - and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.'

There aren't many such people. Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.

And so, though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.

At this point, though, certain doubts may arise in my audience. All sorts of torturers, dictators, fanatics, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well, yes, but they 'know.' They know, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don't want to find out about anything else, since that might diminish their arguments' force. And any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. In the most extreme cases, cases well known from ancient and modern history, it even poses a lethal threat to society.

4:16:45 PM