IBM builds a search engine aimed at the estimated fifth of the world's population that cannot read.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Some 10,000 people worldwide use a version of the Web like no other: it is operated by voice over the telephone. Called the "Spoken Web," it is the result of an IBM research project attempting to re-create the features and functions of the text-based World Wide Web for people in developing regions with low levels of literacy and technical skills.

Four years since the first prototype was released, the spoken Web is part of everyday life for users in four Indian states and parts of Thailand and Brazil. These people use it to learn of things such as local grain prices or job opportunities. On the spoken Web, telephone numbers replace Web addresses. A person can call in to a voice site and listen to or record content.

Now the project is going through a developmental stage that mirrors one from the regular Web's history: the debut of search as a way to navigate a growing body of content.

"As the number of voice sites grows, and they get more content, people need a way to find what they want quickly," says Nitendra...

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The South African National Council for the Blind has been working in close collaboration with the IEC over a period of time to improve the voting experience for blind and partially sighted voters. On behalf of the National Executive Director, Jace Nair, we request that you spread the word to your constituencies to ensure that as many blind people as possible are registered to vote in the 2011 Local Government Elections.



This weekend is Voter Registration Weekend - 5 and 6 February from 08:00 to 17:00. You can call the toll free help line 0800 11 8000 for more information as to where to go. You need to take your green bar-coded South African ID book with you to register. If you do not have an ID book you need to take a Temporary Identity Certificate from Home Affairs with you to register.



You can check your registration status as follows:



1. By sending your ID number to 32810 (you will get a return SMS confirming your status)

2. By calling the toll free help line on 0800 11 8000

3. ...

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I arrived at the address where someone had requested a taxi. I honked but no one came out. I honked again, nothing. So I walked to the door and knocked. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase.. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. 'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, and then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my...

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Wayne Madsen is an American investigative journalist and columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the political blog "Wayne Madsen Report". He has appeared on ABC News, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al-Jezeera, MSNBC and Press TV. Madsen has written the introduction to the book "Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden". Madsen's articles have appeared on a number of news websites and magazines including Global Research, Pacific Free Press, Online Journal, Counter Punch, The American Conservative, Tehran Times and In These Times.

Madsen has more than 20 years of experience in security affairs. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He has also worked for the NSA National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.

Madsen joined me in an exclusive interview and answered my questions about the 9/11 attacks, Israel's dominance over the U.S. media and the prospect of Iran-U.S. relations.

Kourosh Ziabari: There are many unanswered questions regarding the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001 about which you've written extensively. Several investigative journalists believe that the attacks were an inside job...

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Just over sixty years ago, members of the Lohamei Herut Israel/LEHI militant Zionist group assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat who was appointed by the U.N. to mediate peace between the new state of Israel and its Arab neighbours. Bernadotte was shot six times at point-blank range as his convoy drove through Jerusalem, one day after he offered his second mediation plan which, among other things, called for the return of - and compensation for - the Palestinian refugees displaced by the creation of Israel.

On 16 September 1948, Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator for Palestine, submitted his progress report to the United Nations. It contained what he described as "seven basic premises" regarding the situation in Palestine. In the one headed "Right of Repatriation," he declared: "The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return.... [N]o settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from...

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Originally published on June 15th, 2009

Following Netanyahu’s much anticipated policy speech, politicians and journalists, like mindless automatons, have set about repeating Israel’s tired mantra that Palestinians should recognize Israel’s right to exist. Never mind the fact that the PLO and Palestine Authority have obliged this ludicrous call, not once, but four times. And never mind that Israel has always denied Palestine’s right to exist, not only as a nation, but as individuals seeking a dignified life in our own homeland.

Does anyone find it interesting that Israel is the only country on the planet going around with this incessant insistence that everyone recognize her right to exist? Given that we Palestinians are the ones who have been dispossessed, occupied, and oppressed, one might expect that we should be the ones making such a demand. But t hat isn’t the case. Why? Because our right to exist as a nation is self-evident. We are the natives of that land! We know we have that right. The world knows it. That’s why Palestine doesn’t need Israel or any other country to recognize her right to exist. We are the rightful heirs to that land and this can be verified legally, historically, culturally,...

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An old man lived alone in Cape Town. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, Clemence, who used to help him, was in Polsmoor Prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament.

Dear Clemence,

I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me.
Love,

Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Papa,
For heaven's sake, Papa, don't dig up that garden, that's where I buried the bodies.

Love,
Clemence

At 4 A.M. the next morning, the Scorpion Unit, NIA agents and local police showed up and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies.
They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

"Dear Papa,
Go ahead and plant the potatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love

Clemence." No Trackbacks

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Target the Oppressor, Not the Resistance

Originally published on October 23rd, 2010

First a given: there can be no resistance unless there is something to resist against. There can be no anti-occupation resistance if there is no occupation, and there can be no resistance against oppression if there is no oppression. It is a simple logic that eludes many people. That it eludes many people (and almost all of the corporate media) is demonstrable by noting the outcry whenever a resistance uses violence: Those evil, soulless terrorists harming other people — and they do it without reason. Well, there is a reason, although the corporate media refuses to divulge it. Occupation/ oppression is violent, and it gives rise to resistance. There would be no violence were it not for the violence of occupation and oppression. There is no chicken and egg here. It ls obvious that the sole target of vehemence should be the occupation/oppression that induces the resistance, for without the occupation/oppression and the violence that perpetuates it, there would be no violent resistance. Ergo, resistance (whether non-violent or violent) seeks to end violence by defeating an occupation/oppression.

Imagine that a serial rapist breaks into a home and a woman is violently...

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The political definition of a Semite is one who is a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs. It is one who is a descendant of these people. They are a member of a modern people speaking a Semitic language.

Anti-Semitism as defined by Zionism, the colonial, ethnic cleansing enterprise of some Jews, has come to mean almost all criticism of Israel’s policies and actions, in particular its oppression of the Palestinians, and, also, criticism on the basis of revelations from the documented truth of history which expose Zionism’s propaganda for the nonsense it is. Put another way, anti-Semitism as defined by supporters of Israel right or wrong is anything written or said by anybody that challenges and contradicts Zionism’s version of events. In effect Zionists say, “If you disagree with us, you’re anti-Semitic”.

As a blackmail card to silence criticism of Israel and prevent informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East, Zionism’s false charge of anti-Semitism has worked wonderfully well to date. Why? In the long (and still present) shadow of the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust,...

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If you have a Sip or IAX service and no money to purchase a free washington telephone number from your voip provider, do not fear.

The below info, if you follow all the steps, will give you a regular phone number in the USA, which will ring on your SIP or IAX device, all at no cost to you.

Here's what you do:

• Visit http://phone.ipkall.com/




• Please fill in your actual email address. If you fail to do so, you will just not receive your new phone number.




• Make sure that you already have an existing SIP or IAX account if you don't, first go register one. Have a look at my post on IPTel.org's free sip account.




• Select if you want to use a SIP or Iax account.
  If you don't know the difference between the two, just select SIP. It's highly likely that you're using a SIP account.




• Choose Area Code for your IPKall Number: You have 3 choices: 206, 360 and 425.




• Now you have to fill in your SIP or IAX phone number. Note, this number is the number that make up the details of the SIP or IAX account that you have previously registered.




• Next you have to fill in your SIP Proxy:...

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