MediaWatch 07 March 08

In Africa: Vloggers, Bloggers and Movies , Juliana Rincón Parra offers glimpses of Africa through citizen media videos. From BoB winners, to storytellers, documentaries on artists, Nigeria´s Nollywood movie industry and more.

In Mobile: The New Platform War, Rev2.org blogs "Mobile is the future. As we move closer to the much-hyped era of cloud computing, everything will be online. Desktops will serve little purpose but as gateways to the internet that holds our data and the bulk of our interactions."

Three from Strange Attractor: Media08: Death of 'broadcast' advertising, Media08: Al Jazeera and new media and Media08: China's emerging digital culture.

The Internet Is Changing the Scientific Method | Wired Science from Wired.com If all other fields can go 2.0, incorporating collaboration and social networking, it's about time that science does too.

58% of U.S. adults have used cell phones or PDAs for text-messaging, taking a picture, looking for directions or surfing the Web. A full 62% have either used a mobile data service or logged onto the Internet via a laptop away from home or work or via a handheld device. More on the Pew Study...

Text-messaging and taking a photo were easily the most popular non-voice activities, with 58% of mobile users doing both at least once. Playing a game (27%), sending e-mail (19%) and accessing the Web for news, weather and other information (19%), rounded out the top five.

Finland's GeoSentric unveiled on Wednesday its mobile social networking service GypSii for Apple's iPhone. The GypSii application lets iPhone users to get maps and directions and access other location-based as well as social networking services. Source: PCmag via Reuters

Economist and blogger Ikeda Nobuo comments on a Supreme Court decision [ja] declaring that Japan's Net registry system (Juki Net) is constitutional. He argues that a decision against the registration system would have constituted a control on freedom of expression. He also points out that Japan's four major newspapers were excluded in the proposed law, and thus that the move was specifically targeted at free expression on the Internet.