Archive for June 10th, 2008
Freed Student Uses Twitter to Demand Translator’s Release
As NowPublic reported in April, James Karl Buck used Twitter to extricate himself from an Egyptian jail. Although he was freed, his translator and friend, Mohammed Maree, who was arrested along with Buck, remains behind bars.
Now Buck is using his newfound Twitter popularity to help bring attention to Maree’s plight, with the hopes of assisting in his release.
An American student who used a microblog site to free himself from an Egyptian jail is harnessing the Web’s power again — this time to demand the release of his translator.
James Karl Buck was released from a Mahalla jail after sending a one-word blog post from his cell phone through the Twitter Web site. The message — “Arrested” — alerted all of his friends on the site of his detention. var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger(‘cnnImgChngr’,'/2008/TECH/06/05/twitter.maree/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html’,1,1);//CNN.imageChanger.load(‘cnnImgChngr’,'imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html’);
Twitter, a social-networking blog site, allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.
Buck, a graduate student then working on a photography project in Egypt for his master’s thesis, met Maree, a 23-year-old Egyptian veterinary student, in Mahalla. Maree offered to help Buck as he photographed local anti-government protests over low wages and rising food prices.
Back in the United States, Buck has taken it upon himself to further capitalize on the power of his Twitter network, which is now more than 570 followers strong, to help free his translator and friend.
Fueled by the gnawing guilt of leaving Maree behind, Buck set out to enlist all of the help he could in hopes of sparking a movement for his release.
He began setting up a virtual online command post to demand Maree’s release. He used everything from Twitter updates, blog posts on his own Web site to an electronic petition signed by more than 900 people.
Tags: Culture | internet | United States | Web | Egypt | Jail | Prisoner | Mohammed | Release | Social Network | TRANSLATOR | twitter | Maree | microblog
‘Daily Show’ and Colbert Report’ Headed for Hulu
Upstart web video startup Hulu will start streaming full episodes of the Colbert Report and the Daily Show but, unfortunately, video streams will only be available in the U.S.
Hulu will offer full-length episodes of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report,” the companies said Tuesday.
The shows are from Viacom’s MTV Networks and mark the first time that the conglomerate’s content will be on Hulu, which is a joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal. CBS, which shares chairman Sumner Redstone with Viacom, does not have a partnership with Hulu.
Hulu is not the only Web destination that will have “The Daily Show” and “Colbert,” though. Full episodes of both shows are available on ComedyCentral.com and, in May, Comcast announced that it would stream the shows in full on its Fancast site.
Hulu has more than 70 premium content partners and morethan 700 TV and movie titles. In addition to NBC Universal andNews Corp. content, the company has deals with Warner Bros.Television Group, Lionsgate, Sony, Universal, MGM, the NBA andthe NHL.
Tags: Culture | video | report | television | Web | Stream | daily show | NBC | Colbert | universal | culturite | Hulu
Digital Mixtapes: Everything Old is New Again
Now that we’ve all made the shift to organize our formerly physical music collections into digital music libraries and iPod playlists, the necessary next logical next step is to wax nostalgic for the outdated technology that’s come before. Albeit a remixed version.
Music junkies can pick their analogue poison: whether you love to hoard (and reminisce about) old vinyl 12″s, 45″s, 8-tracks, or even CDs, there’s a community of like minded collectors out there who share your passion.
But the great, long lost love of the iPod generation is an irreplaceable fondness for the humble mixtape.
This occasionally artful gift of mixed music has been the format of choice to be shared dubbed and exchanged between friends, lovers, enemies, and family members for decades.
But all that was pre-iTunes.
Now that we’ve traded in many of our physical, real-world things for lesser-grade, virtual versions, it makes sense that many music fans (me included) have grown hungry to integrate the mixtape format into our digitized lives.
With that in mind, several companies have sprung up recently that cater to music fans who are are decidedly nostalgic for two wheels of slow-winding, magnetic taped music, formatted into A and B sides, packaged with hand-crafted, inky titles, maybe some personalized artwork for the sleeve, and a little Dolby Noise Reduction to help hush the tape hiss.
Muxtape offers the least tactile version of this service, but has organized a 12 song streamed, mp3 mixtape service — with a dead easy user interface — that has blown up in just a few short months. Muxtape’s success has even led to the creation of mini web apps like Muxfind and Muxtape Stumbler that allow users to search for specific bands, songs, and genres extracted from the hundreds of Muxtapes being created.
Mixwit offers a similar service, but let’s you search for songs from the online catalogues of Seeqpod and Skreemr to add songs (instead of uploading them) to your tape, then you can customize its title, look & feel and embed your virtual tape on any site, where it plays with the cute animated addition of rotating tape wheels.
And then there’s MIXA which makes entirely customizable, “USB cassettes” that you can design, purchase, and the pre-load with the mixtape (or muxtape!) of your choosing. The MIXA crew even has their own Flickr group started where users have uploaded pics of their favourite mixas.
Here at the office, we’ve taken to playing many a Muxtape in the office lately, which has proven to be a great way to find offbeat music and to boost the mood in the office, although, if I have to hear Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa one more time I might put a Pitchfork through both my ears.
Nevertheless, I like these remixed versions of old school tapes. I’ve yet to order a customized Mixa, but I did make a mixwit tape of early 90s hip-hop this morning. If you happen to get a craving for some early NaS, Souls of Mischief, Jeru, Tribe, and Pharcyde you might want to kick back and listen to a little ‘illmatic magic‘.
