Monthly Archives: July 2011

Privacy, public transportation, and Berlin’s Touch&Travel program

posted on 26 July, 2011 with tags , , , ,

NPR Berlin reported today that Berlin’s public transportation authority, the BVG, launched the Touch&Travel program [de] earlier this month, which allows Vodafone and Telekom customers to use an Android phone or an iPhone to pay for their transport tickets. Participants “check in” while boarding, and confirm their location either through continuous GPS data directly from [...]

The best free culture TED talks

posted on 24 July, 2011 with tags , ,

My friend Patrick Hammer sent around a video of Rebecca MacKinnon’s TED talk about the need for users to take back the Internet. It’s a great talk, and it reminded me of how effective the TED talk format can be at communicating complex ideas to people who don’t want to dive into a monograph or [...]

Touring the Kamake ukulele factory

posted on 10 July, 2011 with tags , , ,

This Tuesday, I had the chance to take a tour of the Kamaka ukulele factory guided by Fred Kamaka Sr., whose father Samuel Kamaka founded the company in 1916. As a ukulele enthusiast, it was a real blast: Kamakas are some of the best in the world and have been the weapon of choice for, [...]