Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Technology Workshops for San Francisco's Low-income Tenderloin Tech Day. Video: Tenderloin Tech Day. In San Francisco's Tenderloin district, amid liquor stores and boarded-up buildings, a partnership of nonprofits earlier this month sponsored the first "Tenderloin Tech Day." The half-day workshop was open to anyone in the low-income neighborhood with a tech problem. CNET News.com's Kara Tsuboi stopped by and chatted with people about their broken laptops, software-less hard drives, and their first-ever Internet experiences. [CNET News.com] As our government disseminates more information digitally and more government services go online, reaching the entire population becomes more important. 9:52:12 PM    comment [] Facebook Power 2007 Power politics. Michael Geist looks at how Facebook can affect legislation [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] Michael Geist wrote: Not only had tools like Facebook had an immediate effect on the government's legislative agenda, but the community that developed around the group also led to a "crowdsourcing" of knowledge. In Facebook  California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is in a group I belong to. She's the only other "State of California" person I've encountered there. I found people from my college (University of Michigan), my high school and several companies I've worked with. The Secretary of State's website has changed. Now it's much lighter and more open. The court at the Secretary of State's has the a wall with the words on the website top banner. I took photos when I was there last year. 9:37:53 PM    comment [] Good Prices for New Solar Start-Up Sells Solar Panels at Lower-Than-Usual Cost. Nanosolar, a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up whose backers include Google[base ']s co-founders, plans to announce Tuesday that it has begun selling its innovative solar panels. By JOHN MARKOFF. [NYT > Technology] This article give an energy price information as follows: Nanosolar's founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal. "With a $1-per-watt panel," he said, "it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems." According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said. So eventually will paying a premium price for "Greenergy" be a thing of the past? 9:26:39 PM    comment [] Egovernment Customer Satisfaction Slipping Slightly Satisfaction with e-gov sites slips a bit with users. User satisfaction with government Web sites slipped slightly for the third straight year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. [Computerworld Breaking News] 9:19:19 PM    comment [] Evoting Costs in France French e-voting study highlights hidden costs. A report on the deployment of e-voting systems around France concludes that electoral districts choosing to use the machines face significant costs, some hidden. [Computerworld Breaking News] 8:43:31 PM    comment []

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