I came across a short video that reminded just how most of the technologies we use today, (particularly the world wide web), are relatively very young — but given their pervasive nature, you would think these technologies have been in existence for a very long time.

Nevertheless, the growth, the speed and current magnitude of the internet seems to suggest two things. Firstly, The internet will continue to get bigger and Secondly, some of the technologies currently their infancy might seem ridiculous today, but seventeen years from now, they might be ubiquitous. That’s how quickly things are moving.

Really enjoyed this mash-up hope you do too.

You might have noticed things changing, or rather slowing down, on this blog. Maybe you haven’t but they have. Instead of the daily hustle to get a blog post out to you I’ll rather write more detailed blog posts on a less frequent basis hopefully providing you with more to chew on so to speak. The internet doesn’t sleep though so herewith some interesting things happening around your wwworld which you might have missed.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi is Headed Toward Queensland. See the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center flickr stream for more.

‘South African Mobile phone users are suddenly Smart’ according to gadget.co.za. A research study released today shows that the cellular habits of South African phone users have evolved dramatically in the past year as smartphones, mobile applications and the mobile Internet entered the mainstream. We’ve known this for ages haven’t we

‘Facebook Introduces a Credibility Score With New Social Commenting Plugin’ – Facebook may be preparing to launch a new version of its Social Commenting plugin. Judging by the version currently implemented on Facebook’s own blog, it may surface high quality comments or help users identify trolls and spammers by assigning users an aggregated credibility score. Since this score travels with users wherever the plugin is integrated, it should encourage more civil, thoughtful commenting. via InsideFacebook.

Another Survey of Mobile phone users in South Africa, this time via MXit. RLabs launched a survey to get an indication of mobile phone usage in South Africa. The survey will be served via mobile social network platform, MXit, to a few thousand users and this is one of our ongoing mobile research studies that we are doing in collaboration with our global partner the Mobile Youth Network . Through this and future studies we hope to bring a better understanding of mobile phone usage in Southern Africa with a specific focus on youth and young adults. See the results thus far here.

Red Bull Mobile is coming to South Africa and they’re launching with 2 Android based devices. I’ll be getting my hands on one of those mobile phones. Expect a review in March 2011.

Swine Flu is still an issue in the UK. You won’t see anything about it on TV though. Wonder why. Flu deaths have risen once again this week as the UK government confirms that 338 in total have now died in since September with an overwhelming number linked to swine flu. via Guardian.co.uk.

Egypt suffers Internetlessness – They’re trying to get rid of Mubarak and in return he has switched off their internet. You have to check Aljazeera’s coverage on this. What would we do without internet?

Google vs Bing mud sling. Google says Bing is copying it’s search results. This story is still developing.

For even more tech-related updates see the MIH SWAT blog.

A playstation phone might have sounded farfetched a year ago, but then again, this is an industry that changes by the minute. In case you happen to be a big gaming fanatic, The question is –  if the playstation phone does come out in South Africa, are you going to get yourself one?

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.

Don’t forget the purpose of Influence.

He begins off by asking the simple question… “ What does it mean to be broken? “

He goes further on to explain “ …First of all… If I think it’s broken, then Its broken … now you get to say the same thing – If you think it’s broken? its broken! …”

This is a really interesting talk – not necessarily because of the pedigree of the speaker, but if you watch it, you might actually realize that you have that “Hidden potential” to make things unbroken, and probably benefit from it.

Enjoy.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

In the following video Wikileaks founder Julian Assange explains why the wwworld needs Wikileaks. South Africa needs to become aware of and start using WikiLeaks in a similar fashion it is used in Kenya and the US.

Over at TechCentral Duncan Mcleod shares his opinion on why the South African internet filter is not a good idea.

According to a Sapa wire report last week, Gigaba intends “fast-tracking the passage of a yet-to-be-drafted law that will compel Internet service providers to filter content provided to users to ensure it does not contain any pornography”.

He reportedly made the remarks at a symposium arranged by the Film & Publication Board to find ways of protecting children from the harmful effects of porn on the Web and mobile phones.

“Despite recent amendments to the law and other efforts to stop the devastating effect on children of their access to pornography, it’s not enough,” board legal affairs manager Dumisani Rorwana said in a statement. “The law as it stands is not working, so we have no choice but to take it to the next level.”

That sounds ominous, especially given that these noises are being made at the same time as the ANC is ratcheting up talk of the need for a media tribunal, and as concern continues to grow over the Protection of Information Bill.

Blocking porn is only the cover story to censor a platform that was never meant to be censored. Australian citizens are already battling their governments attempts to censor the internet with No Clean Feed.

The Australian Federal Government is pushing forward with a plan to force Internet Service Providers [ISPs] to censor the Internet for all Australians. This plan will waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and will not make anyone safer.

The filter will do almost nothing to prevent the people who are willfully making, trading, and accessing child sexual abuse material. This type of material is not distributed in the open and we need to fund police to continue to infiltrate and prosecute the groups of people responsible for creating and distributing such material.

The filter will not prevent children from accessing inappropriate material. The proposed category of censored sites will not be wide enough to provide assurances to parents. Parents will be much better served by installing one of the many voluntary filters that are currently available and ensuring that their children are adequately supervised and aware of risks they may face online.

The list of material to be banned includes much more than child sexual abuse material. The category of material that has been ‘refused classification’ includes websites about euthanasia, controversial movies such as ‘Ken Park’ and ‘Baise-moi’, and many games that are designed for people over 16 years of age.

Despite being almost universally condemned by the public, ISPs, State Governments, Media and censorship experts, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is determined to force this filter into your home.

I think we need a NoCleanFeed.co.za sooner rather than later. Also read the Daily Maverick’s piece on the bigger picture behind wa Afrika’s arrest.

The words in Joe‘s email signature has made me rethink things. Head down forging on…

What exactly is a torrent you ask? Torrents are are a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. So you can download very large files, like movies or series (not always legally) from other torrent users anywhere in the wwworld. If you’re on uncapped ADSL this shouldn’t be a problem. Continue reading for the 5 reasons to torrent Clash of the Titans and watch the preview.

1. It wasn’t really a 3D movie, rather converted to 3D, so watching a downloaded torrent will be just as good.
2. Barry Ronge say’s it was meant for 2D and we ALWAYS listen to Barry.
3. If you know anything about Islam then the way Jin are portrayed in the movie Clash of the Titans is just wrong.
4. The single purpose plastic 3D glasses you receive at the cinema are not very environmentally friendly
5. The main character get’s everything handed to him on a silver platter. It might be because he is the bastard son of the mighty Zeus (Liam Neeson) but it makes for a very uninspiring plot

If you haven’t experienced a 3d movie yet then Clash of the Titans 3D is not something to lose your 3D movie virginity on.

There is a new show starting on BBC entitled Superpower. If this preview is anything to go by I’d love to see it. [via Chris Rawlinson]

Here’s an overview of the show.