Jailed for Blogging

The BBC has reported on a Burmese blogger who has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for his post of a cartoon of their military leader Than Shwe. Nay Phone Latt, a 28 year old Burmese national, was arrested in January but only received his sentencing on Monday. The judgement included 15 years for offences under the Electronics Act, two years for "creating public alarm" and three and a half years for offences under the Video Act.

His blogs during the September 2007 uprising provided the international community with one of its only information points about events within the locked-down country.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association have demanded his release. According to their figures this brings the number of journalists arrested so far this year to 10.

George believe's in....

Lennon may have been the Walrus, but George was the president. Now it's time to say goodbye.





Fantastic stuff from Cal-TV. Make sure you check out his other work.

Most Downloaded Song of all Time?

Have you ever wondered what the most downloaded track of all time is? There are so many songs that would easily seem like great guesses - The Beatles perhaps, Rolling Stones maybe? Not even close.

For legal music downloads, the most downloaded song of all time, and the first song to break the 2 million download mark, is Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing'.

Perhaps the ultimate power ballad of love, loss and redemption, Journey's hit song originally only topped the charts at number 8 but has seen a huge resurgence in recent years. Released in 1981 it's modern popularity is owed mostly to TV. It has featured on popular TV shows such as Laguna Beach, and much, much more famously on the final episode of The Sopranos.

Truth be told, after the song featured on that episode of The Sopranos, iTunes sales increased by over 428% in just 3 days.

So sit back and listen....

Hyper-Connectivity

I StumbledUpon this great video about the idea of Hyper-Connectivty, and the always on connection that we have to our digital worlds. The focus is on the gradual shift in the way we see communication and entertainment, and how the concepts of offline and online are steadily blurring more and more.

Creative Commons

In a changing world of open source, user generated and community content, there is a growing shift by many developers, artists and producers to allow a wider use of their creations, across platforms and across media. This video explains the principles behind creative commons, which is seen by many as the great enabler towards an ever expanding participative culture. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Creative Commons is that it is driven by the concept of coolaberation and sharing, above anything else. It's an 'ideal' notion, which perhaps surprisingly, is gaining serious ground within all creative disciplines.