This direct mail campaign is incredibly effective in how it brings forth childhood memories for many while emphasizing the reality of those who may never have one: Child soldiers in places such as Africa. The campaign may be aiming to find corporate sponsorships, but they've earned a check from me, too. [Direct Daily]

That has got to hurt for Telkom, one of South Africa's main ADSL providers, but damn is Winston the pigeon feeling like the man today. He is telling all the other pigeons, how it took him two hours to carry the strapped-to-his-back flash drive 60 miles to the company's second office in Durban. In the same time the broadband service had only sent 4 percent of the data. You do the math but that is pretty damn slow upload speeds. No wonder the guys at Unlimited IT first joked that a bird could send files faster.

This is just the kind of story I want to read to children at night (I'm thinking the picture book is called "Winston and the Broadband"). Let's hope South Africa gets those fiber optic lines installed soon or else a crap load of bird seed. [BBC]

And yes, the photographer and videographer apparently had no idea. [National Geographic via Neatorama]

"This is basically a dynamo which is being driven as a result of friction between the ground and the blocks. The small yellowish blocks (these are covered by rubber in the real commercial product) rotate as you pull it. They are designed to rotate even on bumpy run even roads. We have tested it on moist lawns and have worked. It is very smooth so much that you basically don't feel any disturbance as you move along.

At normal walking speeds we have gotten more than 2 watts which is more than enough for running cell phones or radios. I envision that people will attach this to themselves and walk with it - or even attach it to an ox-cart, a skating board, bike, etc."

It seems absurd (and it certainly looks absurd), but harnessing wasted movement to generate electricity is an idea that has a lot of potential.

Even though the rats being used are the Giant Gambian variety, they're still too light to set off most mines that they find. Trainers devised a harness that guides the rats systematically over a 100-meter square area, and a team of two can clear two such 100 square meter fields in a day. When they find the mines, they're rewarded with bananas.

The project has been going on for several years in multiple mine-strewn African zones, with some pretty significant success. You can donate by adopting a mini-sniffing rat online at, appropriately, HeroRat.org. [Hero Rats via Afrigadget]

I don't think the OLPC folks are advocating doing the ol' switcheroo—XO for AK-47—to eradicate such horrors as the ones depicted on the spot. No, I think the ad does a great job in reminding us that, hey, this project was started for a serious reason. It's not OLPC's fault that they spawned an entirely new laptop category with plenty of consumer frenzy and ridiculousness behind it in the process.

The ad is, apparently, only intended only for the internet. Although I kind of wish they'd run this next to the iPod Touch and BlackBerry Storm ads in the coveted Office/30 Rock hour for tech advertisers. [OLPC Ad on Daily Motion via Laptop, Gadget Lab]

Pachyderm rescue group Save the Elephants started the scheme up after five elephants who refused to stop raiding crops had to be shot by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The project, still in its infancy, is expensive to implement and not without its troubles. But it's already saved the life of one regular crop fiend, a bull named Kimari who's been intercepted 15 times since he was first connected. [Daily Mail via Switched]

Google and their partners threw in $60 million out of the required $150-$180m into the kitty of O3b Networks (the other 3 billion, get it?), the firm established to launch the satellites and manage the initiative. A satellite downlink is of course only the first step in setting up a fresh broadband network, but the company also has plans to convert mobile phone towers into multipurpose high-speed network nodes, which when complete is estimated to cost $750m all told. Google says it will help drop the price of broadband by up to 95% in some places where it's a rare commodity. When the satellites are launched in 2010, that's one step closer to 3 billion more new Googlers, looking at AdSense ads all the way, of course. [Financial Times via /.]

The new design comes at the request of Ericsson, which wanted an alternative to a purely diesel-run base station. Those consume roughly 20,000 liters (5,283 gallons) of diesel per year - an increasingly costly expense with rising world energy prices.

The E-Site draws its power from a wind turbine in the network tower and solar panels on the roof. Clean energy sources charge a battery that then powers the base station at night. The E-site also has a small diesel generator, just in case the batteries run out.

What's even more amazing is the E-site's operating system, which can learn to adapt its power-generating techniques to different situations. For instance, if the batteries are running low at night, but the system knows the sun will rise soon, it can decide to wait it out until morning rather than head straight towards the diesel. Good thinking, E-site! [Cnet]

Security specialists at F-Secure have drawn up a report with three maps that create—perhaps unintentionally—a compelling narrative of the way malware reflects the changing economic situation around the globe.

Back in the day (1986 to 2003), computer viruses mainly came from developed, predominantly white regions, US, Europe and Australia, along with India. There were anomalies like the Philippines-originated "Love Bug," but by and large, it seemed computer viruses could be chalked up as a by-product of the technological success of the post-industrial world. The hackers themselves were effete, tea-sipping "hobbyists," out to perfect their skills—not steal millions.
Next came the pros from Eastern Europe, China and Brazil. For the past four or five years, it's been a full-on assault from the regions where high-level computer skills are plentiful, but legit employment opportunities like those found at Redmond, Mountain View or Cupertino are slim to none. Broadband roll-out and a border-free internet have given these guys plenty of opportunities for targeted attacks with cash money—okay, credit-card and bank-account info—as the deliberate end result.In the future, though, new e-criminals will most likely operate out of regions that seem a bit more surprising, such as Mexico and Africa. Part of the reason is that internet usage is fast increasing in those areas, while the requisite IT job growth or technological-age legal system that naturally keep the ruffians in check are not developing as fast. Pour a little political discord on top of that, and you've got one hell of a haven for hackers.

India will also see a resurgence in criminal activity, mainly because the job opportunities will never keep up with the number of people being trained with high-level computer skills, in spite of the country's rapid growth.[F-Secure]

As you might imagine, the bar has attracted quite a bit of attention over the years despite its remote location. It now serves more than 7,000 visitors from all over the world annually. [Daily Mail via Neatorama]

It not only lets the few dozen people in that country who have credit cards swipe them in this device, but it also prints out a receipt and sends the charge data via the cell network to the mothership. Kidding aside, this might actually make life safer in Africa, eliminating the need to transport cash, a dangerous proposition since not that much cash is around anyway.

But what about the dearth of credit card holders on that continent? Given the nature of the subprime credit card companies here in the States, we're thinking there might be a rush to blanket Africa with credit cards now. [Swift Global, via bb Gadgets]

Residents can use the oven to cook hot meals or make hot water for washing. The system's added benefit is that it reduces waste in the area, a problem that has gotten so bad that it is beginning to destroy Kenya's plains.

Recognized as the first of its kind, the concept has caught on quickly, and plans for 20 more are already in the works. As people are increasingly drawn to urban areas, excess waste is rapidly becoming a critical problem. There are still some obvious kinks to be worked out, such as containing the fumes from the burning garbage.

The oven was built with the help of a $10,000 grant from the United Nations Environment Programme. Advocates of the oven hope that the technology works well enough to be employed in large cities everywhere. [Christian Science Monitor via Treehugger]

This all sounds well and good, and I'm all for supplying African nations with better technology, but aren't all these apps free already? I mean, what exactly is Google doing here that's so great ? It doesn't seem like they're providing, you know, computers connected to the Internet that are able to utilize these services or anything. It seems like that would be a lot more helpful than merely not charging for personalization of their services. It seems like it's merely an exclusive deal that benefits Google more than the institutions they're trying to get good PR by "helping" to me. –Adam Frucci

Google announces partnership with Rwandan Government and Kenya Education Network to provide free communications applications [Google]

Let's all buy one. Good cause. Or, you could just contribute $10 to the Global Fund and accomplish the same thing without lining Apple's pockets at the same time. – Charlie White

Update: Apple Marketing tells us that the company will also offer Red iTunes gift cards, 10% of which will go to the campaign. Nice touch.

Product Page [Apple]