Sen No Sen

Deutsche Welle says: Blogs Making Baby Steps in German Politics

“Germany is still a developing country when it comes to blogs,” said Markus Beckedahl, who blogs at netzpolitik.org. “The awareness of blogs as a means of political communication needs to be raised in Germany.”

You said it, Markus.

“Maybe one day the realization will come through that the Internet can lead to a new form of communication between politicians and voters,” Politik Digital’s Dowe said. “That is a long way off in Germany…

No kidding! Maybe one day…

(via Schockwellenreiter)

Spread Firefox quotes the latest worldwide numbers from a French study by Xiti Monitor.

With an overall 14.83% market share in Europe, Finland is at the top with a whopping 31%, followed by Germany at 24.5%. Then comes the Czech Republic, Croatia and Poland, all with more than 20%. Compared with only 11,78% in North America, this is at least one area where Europe leads the way.

Go Firefox!

(via digg/software)

Update: 08.08

Type about:mozilla in the Firefox address box for a little Easter egg.

We’re not Afraid!

(via Planet Web 2.0 - Ross Mayfield)

Update:

Steve Rubel points to a Yahoo! News Blog: Accounts from the London Bombings

Slashdot:

European parliament has struck down the proposal for a directive that would have brought US-style software patents into EU.

One comment…

Congratulations to the FFII.org and all the European citizens!

Today we’re a bit closer to freedom

And another:

Ok so the current score is 1-0 to the good guys, but I’m pretty sure the game isn’t over yet…

The city of Vienna has reached a milestone (WorldLingo translation) in it’s open source initiative.

(via Heise Online - WorldLingo translation )

Update:

An English article makes for better reading

You can now download symphonies 6 - 8 on BBC - Radio 3

The 9th will be up (the day after) tomorrow - for just a week.

Pink Floyd reuniting for Live 8 concert

Organizers of the London Live 8 concert said Sunday that the original members of the British rock band Pink Floyd would perform for the first time in more than two decades at the July event.

Guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, bass player Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright have not performed onstage together since 1981.

W00t!

(via Guardian Unlimited)

Loic Le Meur started a wiki entry on The European blogosphere in preparation for a presentation at the Reboot7 meetup. Hundreds of contributions later he was able to use the wiki itself for his presentation.

Check the Summary Page for the details on each country.

(via Many2Many)

Computer Business Review reports on a talk by Jesus Villasante, head of the software development unit at the European Commission’s Information Society and Media Directorate General :

The idea that Europe should be behind the rest of the world in open source development is a curious one, given that Linux creator Linux Torvalds and Linux distributor SUSE Linux are originally from Europe, and many of the leading open source projects are based there.
(…)
“First we need to reduce the uncertainty that people have in business and governments about the use of open source. Second thing, European industry has to incorporate open source more actively to their product lines. And third we have to strengthen the open source communities in Europe,”

Well, well. Given the vision set by Europe’s heads of state in Lisbon, 2000:

“to make Europe the world’s most competitive and dynamic economy, characterised by sustainable growth, more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, by 2010″. (…) by putting in place coherent and targeted actions on Information society policies and research, the audiovisual sector and Media.

… and the goal stated by Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media:

“… to combine the economic dynamism of the rapidly expanding communication sector with the potential to create new jobs, and to improve the quality of life of citizens. At the same time, I want to give a new impetus to creativity, cultural diversity and a flourishing media content sector. All this should always be done with the needs of our citizens in mind”.

… the level of progress made so far (more like utter failure) would seem to reinforce the validity of the general skepticism among so many citizens of Europe these days.

A great pity indeed.

(via Slashdot)

Blogspotting reports:

Bloggers played a big part in yesterday’s historic French vote rejecting the European constitution.

(via BuzzMachine)

Update: 05 June

BBC News: Bloggers take on European elites

EURid

EURid has been chosen by the European Commission to manage the .eu TLD.

PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS NOT YET POSSIBLE TO REGISTER OR PRE-REGISTER A .EU DOMAIN NAME WITH EURid AND THERE ARE NO ACCREDITED REGISTRARS FOR .EU.

We are working on final preparations to launch .eu. Please see our timetable .

On this web site you can already find information about getting a .eu name, the ’sunrise period’ and becoming a .eu registrar

We are currently writing the full registration policy & procedures and will soon begin to have key documents and information on this web site translated into all the official EU languages.

Heads-Up: A Statewatch Report:

Read how the EU-wide Schengen Informationssystem II is being developed into a Panoptic-Big-Brother-Surveillance-Database-Machine behind the backs of the European parliaments.

From the Schengen Information System to SIS II and the Visa
Information (VIS): the proposals explained (pdf)

Taken together, SIS II, VIS and PNR will introduce the surveillance of the movements of everyone in the EU - citizens, legally resident third-country nationals, visa entrants and irregular migrants - and the storage of their personal data on an unprecedented scale.

Real Horrorshow!

(via Heise Online - Google translation)

See for yourself.

… says I am Irish!

(via Blogstats.de)

The German Heise group reports in Telepolis on plans by the Spanish government (terrible World Lingo translation - Google doesn’t do any better either) to impose blanket censorship of the net at provider level - all under the guise of protecting intellectual property. Measures include speedy prosecution laws with wide-ranging powers granted to “Internet Police”.

In the light of their history, what else can one expect?

We say NO WAY, Jose!

The New York Times cites Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the French National Library:

…Europe, he said, should counterattack by converting its own books into digital files and by controlling the page rankings of responses to searches.
(…)
“European ranking should reflect a European vision of history and culture.”

But which Europe? That of the French, German and Spanish languages? That of the 25 members of the European Union? More crucially, will European governments or the public have the power to define the books and criteria used in response to search requests?