On the issue of intermediaries, while acknowledging the very valid concerns pointed out by Don Osborne, I'd just like to add that some work has been done to try and get around some of these problems. The "voices in their hands project" by a Philips Researcher, Paul Rankin <http://www.stanford.edu/~prankin/eng/>, a Reuters Digital vision Fellow at Stanford 2002-2003, addresses those very issues in almost exactly the way Osborne envisions it should, i.e. use of handhelds (modified MP3 player), used as a service, a voice e-mail store and forward device, privacy, leveraging use of Telecenter. It just struck me how great minds think alike in solving problems. Admittedly there may still be technical issues to work around. It's a work in progress. Please visit the site for more information and send any queries to Paul Rankin. Other solutions could be variations on this theme.
Don Osborne wrote: > I'm not at all comfortable with the notion of person-to-person or > web-to-individual(s) information being mediated where it's not > absolutely necessary, and then only as a temporary strategy and with as > few transformations as possible - i.e., if as a service, more like a > postal relay (can what the sender says be recorded and transmitted > exactly as such through the media to the receiver?) than like the > traditional letter writer in much of Africa who hears in one language, > translates into another, and writes a letter that may have to be > back-translated on the other end. Maybe handhelds will help in this > regard. Kind regards, Raphael Kaume Marambii Microsoft Fellow Reuters Digital Vision fellowship Program Stanford University Cordura Hall 210 Panama Street Stanford, CA 94305-4115 +1 650 724 9258 or 9259 (tel) + 1 650 861 0241 (mobile) +1 650 724 4076 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://reuters.stanford.edu ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
