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Google's sure got their fingers in a lot of pies these days. I'm sure you've probably already heard about Android (or at least the rumours of a gPhone) but if you haven't, I'll take a moment to share my thoughts.  

A quick runthrough - for months now, there has been gossip that Google was planning to enter the cellphone/mobile data industry.  Bloggers quickly dubbed the ethereal mystery device gPhone, but that's all there were--rumours.  On Guy Fawkes Day of this year, the Android Platform was announced.  

Basically, google's not making a phone of their own, they're coordinating/leading the new Open Handset Alliance to develop what they call the Android Platform.  Android is an open standard (s'posed to be licenced under Apache v2 if I'm not mistaken, though the members of the Open Handset Alliance apparently signed a Non-fragmentation agreement to keep code from forking in non-interoperable ways) for a mobile telecommunications platform.  

Android uses a Linux kernel, a specialized Java virtual machine, and provides a library (with things like a/v codecs, etc.)--they've already released the first version of the SDK, so if you're a code monkey and you've got time to kill, please hit up http://code.google.com/android and then share your thoughts with us.  The libraries support 3d hardware acceleration if you've got the hardware, and each piece of code is designed to be modular and interoperable.  This means that anything within the software stack will be replaceable.  Good times.  

On the whole, this seems like exactly the kind of thing that mobile computing/communications needs.  Open, modular, ubiquitous.  In other words, it sounds good.  

It just kind of makes me nervous that a consortium of corporate superpowers is in charge of this.  There's definite promise here, but keep your eyes open.  It almost sounds too good to be true.  

Some further reading.....

http://code.google.com/android 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28mobile_phone_platform%29

http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html 

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/13/1348233&from=rss

DocDroppers needs your help.  Yes, you. 

Clearly, you've got access to the interwebs or you couldn't be reading this (unless it gets copied to another media) and you've probably got a reasonable open mind (or else you likely wouldn't be reading this site). 

Recently, much of the hacking history and culture has begun to disappear from Wikipedia.  Rather than fight asshat deletionist wikipedians, a call for help came from the BinRev forums to relocate hacker culture articles to DocDroppers.org before it all disappears.  

DD is a repository of hacking related articles/knowledge, hosted by StankDawg and the DDP.  It's running mediawiki (I know, I know--lx, I can almost hear you wretching now), but implementation aside DocDroppers is a valuable resource (and, like pretty much all DDP projects, shares a lot of the same motivations/goals as the Empowerment community).  

Check it out, and if you've got something to add, we can use your help.  

-cid

http://docdroppers.org

http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34728 

Sorry about going silent this past little while.  I may not have exercised my voice here lately, but I've been close by.  I've just been collecting my thoughts (the logout errors were getting pretty bad and I've started a new job) but, rest assured I haven't gone anywhere. 

I see we've had another influx of new names and visitors which is good.  Alex got some more high praise on NewsReal (which I just can't get enough of).  I'm all about the independent/alternative/underground media, so if any of you have some good links, by all means pm me or start a thread or something.  Maybe we'll get some kind of reccomedia stream/thread going strong one of these days.  

-cid 

It still amazes me how the Internet can reach across the globe and connect people who would have never otherwise met.  I feel fortunate to have found a community like EmpowerThyself.  I know we can do good things here. 

Ideas about the Future

Right now, there are a number of technologies converging on the Internet--xml, p2p, user moderation, gpg, web of trust, page scraping, collaborative computing, onion routing, etc.  A lot of the ideas that have been floating around this site promise to harness these convergences in exciting new ways.   

More and more, people are realizing that they have a voice.  This site has the potential to empower people in two ways--by spreading knowledge (education), and helping people to find their voice (which is encouraging relevant new dialogue).  

Hopefully, we'll be able to provide a flexible new way to link resources and people together from all over.  There is a lot of potential building rapidly at the moment.   If we can successfully combine all the best ideas and resources (without becoming reliant on them) our community will be useful.  

And if we combine this usefulness with fun and ease of use, we will thrive.  

I think the gold stars (userpoints) module is a fantastic idea.  In the future, it might even be possible to expand to different types of stars for different activities.   Who knows?  As simple of a concept as it is, the stars can add a little boost of motivation. 

New ideas about motivation and the reasons we do things have recently begun to congeal.  This is manifested in things like free and open source software, online communities (with volunteer and user moderation), and ideas like gift economies and time-based economies.  The desire for independence and creative expression, combined with a growing unhappiness with our current hyper-consumerist economy has led a lot of people to get into a DIY type of lifestyle, opening many peoples' eyes to new methods for happiness.  

It's cool to share again

Remember when you were a kid and  you were always told to share, sharing is good, sharing makes you feel all warm inside, better to give than receive and all that?  Did you ever get it?  That warm feeling that makes you actually understand what the person was talking about with the Better to Give thing.   

A lot of people are capturing that feeling again.  Communities are coming together both online and in real life, bonding together in ways that haven't existed for decades, and sometimes in completely new ways.  

This has become especially true on the Internet.  Zero-sum isn't always the hard rule of the Internet.  Digital media allows for win-win situations (meaning, you can have your cake and eat it, too).  Volunteering can also allow for win-win--if you enjoy the work you're doing, or you derive satisfaction from it's completion, you win, plus whoever is getting the benefits of your work wins, also.  The people over at Altruists.org have a lot of interesting writing on this sort of thing--and what's more, they're actually working on doing some things about it.  

This, I believe is at least part of what lxpk and I were talking about the other day--acting as glue for the community.  If we can provide support for the people and communities that are already out there doing good, empowering things, and link the benefits and services and people, our effectiveness (and the services/resources being linked) becomes exponentially increased.  

Part of what we need to focus on, I believe, is new ways to interact with the other empowering projects.  If we can do that, there's no telling what we could change.