News you can Use
Play and feed hungry people
(www.freerice.org)
W hat can online game
give you? Refreshment?
A cash award? A free trip to
Caribbean Islands ? An act
of Philanthropy!! Nay, seems
simply out of imagination.
But, now you can. www.fre-
erice.org gives you that un-
believable chance. You can
feed an unknown face, by just
sitting at your desk, playing a
simple word game.
All that you have to do is
to visit the site freerice.org
and you will see a vocabu-
lary game. For every word
that you correctly define, 20
grains of rice are donated to
people in need. By learning
vocabulary and having fun
Donate a laptop to a child
(www.laptop.com)
N ot just rice, you can
even donate a laptop to
a child in a far off developing
country. Visit the site www.
laptop.com and you can make
your donation. You can do-
nate even 100 or more lap-
tops through the site.
The One Laptop per Child
association (OLPC) is a non-
profit organization, created
by faculty members of the
MIT Media Lab, set up to
oversee The Children’s Ma-
chine project.
The laptop specially designed
for this is called XO-1 $100
laptop. The hardware and
software are designed for
elementary school children
aged 6-12.
Both the project and the or-
ganization were announced
at the World Economic Fo-
rum in Davos, Switzerland
in January 2005. OLPC is
funded by a number of spon-
sor organizations, including
AMD, Brightstar Corpora-
tion, eBay, Google, Marvell,
News Corporation, SES,
Nortel Networks, and Red
Hat. Each company has do-
nated two million dollars.
As claimed in the website, the
mission of the One Laptop
per Child (OLPC) movement
is to ensure that all school-
aged children in the develop-
ed matrix MAY 2008
playing a game, you help end
world hunger. Not a bad deal,
is it not?
Freerice.com is sister site of
the world poverty site, Pov-
erty.com
Freerice.com has two goals:
* Provide English vocabulary
to everyone for free
* Help end world hunger by
providing rice to hungry peo-
ple for free
This is made possible by the
sponsors who advertise on
this site. When you play the
game, advertisements ap-
pear on the bottom of your
screen. The money generated
by these advertisements is
then used to buy the rice. So
ing world are able to engage
effectively with their own
personal laptop, networked
to the world, so that they,
their families and their com-
munities can openly learn and
learn about learning.
The OLPC Association fo-
cuses on designing, manu-
facturing, and distributing
laptops to children in lesser
developed countries, initially
concentrating on those gov-
ernments that have made
commitments for the fund-
ing and program support
required to ensure that all of
their children own and can ef-
fectively use a laptop.
The laptops are sold to gov-
ernments, to be distributed
through the ministries of
education willing to adopt
by playing, you generate the
money that pays for the rice
donated to hungry people.
The site explains that the
rice is distributed by the
United Nations World Food
Program (WFP). The World
Food Program is the world’s
largest food aid agency,
working with over 1,000
other organizations in
over 75 countries. In addi-
tion to providing food, the
World Food Program helps
hungry people to become
self-reliant so that they
escape hunger for good.
As of December 2, 2007,
5,773,015,170 grains of rice
have been donated.
the policy of “one laptop per
child”. The operating system
and software is localized to
the languages of the partici-
pating countries.
Initial focus is on the launch of
the One Laptop per Child pro-
gram. In the future, the OLPC
Foundation will focus on the
grassroots, “bottom-up” as-
pects of the OLPC mission.
India rejected the initiative, say-
ing “it would be impossible to
justify an expenditure of this
scale on a debatable scheme
when public funds continue
to be in inadequate supply for
well-established needs listed in
different policy documents”.
The Ministry of Human Re-
source Development of India
has stated plans to make laptops
at $10 for schoolchildren.
41

Digg and share the information
that apeals to you!
(www.digg.com)
D
ig and share the
information that
appeals to you!
Here is a website for people
to discover and share content
from anywhere on the web.
From the biggest online des-
tinations to the most obscure
blog, Digg.com surfaces the
best stuff as voted on by the
users. You won’t find editors
at Digg - Digg provides a
place where people can col-
lectively determine the value
of content.
Everything on Digg - from
news to videos to images to
Podcasts - is submitted by
its community (that would
be you). Once something
is submitted, other people
see it and Digg what they
like best. If your submission
rocks and receives enough
Diggs, it is promoted to the
front page for the millions of
its visitors to see.
And it doesn’t stop there. A
conversation happens around
Manage your side job easy!!
(www.sideJobtrack.com)
S
ide Job Track is a free
service for anyone look-
ing to quickly and easily
manage small side projects.
Side Job Track is an easy way
to track and manage project-
related information for small,
single person jobs. Side Job
Track allows you to store a
set of default information for
services and/or materials you
commonly use performing
your side-work. Simple entry
the content. The site
promotes the con-
versation and pro-
vides tools for the
community to dis-
cuss the topics that
they are passionate
about. By looking at
information through
the lens of the col-
lective community
on Digg, you will
always find some-
thing interesting
and unique.
Digg is democratis-
ing digital media. As a user,
you participate in determining
all site content by discovering,
selecting, sharing, and dis-
cussing the news, videos, and
podcasts that appeal to you.
How Digg works?
Submit your favorites.
Find an article, video, or
podcast online and submit it
to Digg.com. Your submission
will immediately appear in
“Upcoming Stories,” where
screens give you the flexibil-
ity to be as vague or detailed
as you desire and a reporting
system gives you the informa-
tion you need to expand your
side-work. You can use Side
Job Track to gather and lever-
age as much or as little side
job related information that
will allow you to learn more
about your after-hours work.
By assembling your jobs into
projects with associated serv-
ed matrix june 2008
N E W S y o u CAN US E
other members can find it
and, if they like it, Digg it.
Become popular. Once a sub-
mission has earned a critical
mass of Diggs, it becomes
“popular” and jumps to the
homepage in its category. If
it becomes one of the most
popular, it qualifies as a “Top
10”. If a submission doesn’t
receive enough Diggs within
a certain time period, it even-
tually falls out of the “Upcom-
ing” section.
ices, clients and/or materi-
als you can better track what
needs to be done for who,
when. In addition, by using
Side Job Track you will auto-
matically organize the vision
of your side work.
Its features include: web-
based job tracking, invoicing,
and reporting and project
management software for the
part-time independent con-
tractor.
Digg.
Participate in the collabo-
rative editorial process by
Digging the stuff that you
like best. As you Digg, you
contribute to the popularity
of any given item.
Bury.
If you find stories with bad
links, off-topic content, or
duplicate entries, click “Bury.”
That’s how we get the spam
out of the system and let the
good stuff rise to the top.
Build a network. Invite your
friends or find them on Digg
and add them to your friends
list. Then your friends can
track what you are Digging
and you can see what they
Digg as well, enabling you
to collectively find news to-
gether.
Comment.
Share your opinions by com-
menting on stories, videos,
and podcasts as well as Dig-
ging and Burying comments
by other users.
Side Job Track is targeted to-
wards freelance artists, pro-
grammers, web developers,
web designers, carpenters,
plumbers, electricians, serv-
er administrators, computer
repair persons, and anyone
who works full-time but also
provides services casually for
friends, family, or clients!
Raj. A
41

The power of communities
Build Good Communities
(www.Injoos.com)
A
t last we have one safe and secure
community network site amidst
hundred other network sites that
provide problem instead of a promise of
safe netwrok. Injoos is a safe and easy
platform with rich interactivity that will help
you to start or join a community, share or
seek relevant information, and make it
easy for you to form world communities
to realize goals online. By no means
it is simple. There is power and punch
though it looks simple and small.
The mission of Injoos is to harness the
power of communities in thought and
action. Today, more and more people who
build communities look for communities
that build trusted connections, a sense
of common identity to achieve greater
Literacy, the Basic Currency of Knowledge Economy!
(www.Childrenslibrary.org)
P
arents could be happy that this
multicultural library features
carefully selected, age-rated
books and is completely kid-appropriate.
Parents can rest easy -- the site doesn’t
have any interactive areas, and the non
- profit organization uses strict policies
on privacy and external links to keep
kids away from inappropriate content.
With a growing collection from around
the world, the International Children’s
Library invites kids to grow their world
through online reading. The library’s
multilingual books are age-rated and
include a variety of genres like folk tales,
classics, non-fiction, etc.
relevance of information through sharing
and realize common goals through
collaboration. All these are truly realized in
Injoos.com. Injoos supports and sustains
communities through member interaction,
sharing, collaboration, and moderation.
Different organizations, schools,
institutions and even a small group of
four or five can have easy access to
this safe portal for a dynamic interactivity.
You can share about ideas, events, your
class notes, articles and even your work
process. You can share photos, video
and audio files too. This automatically
documents your files and helps your group
members to download them with ease.
There is no doubt injoos develops
identities which connect people with a
The library also focuses on translations,
offering most books in more than one
language (one book is offered in thirteen
different languages!). The site has great
search tools, broken down into many
ed matrix july 2008
N E W S y o u CAN US E
strong bonding and provides a lifelong
community experience. If you are not
part of any group or even if you are
part of one in other networking sites,
try Injoos and you are sure to make
an indelible identity and a unifying
experience.
categories. Large buttons make it easy to
navigate and to read through the books,
but some books required the “zoom in”
feature, which enlarges text and pictures
(but depending on your monitor, resulted
in not having everything on one page).
While this online library doesn’t offer
the newest best sellers, it overflows
with exotic places, spell-binding stories,
fascinating characters, and exciting
languages. It’s an excellent resource
for parents who want to expose their
kids to different cultures and languages,
and for families who speak more than
one language.
Raj. A
41

Wii-habilitation: Using Video Games To Heal Burns
ScienceDaily — Video games — often
regarded as nothing more than mindless
entertainment for lethargic kids and
teens — are proving to be an effective,
new tool to motivate patients to perform
rehabilitation exercises.
Rehabilitation therapists from the
William Randolph Hearst Burn Centre
at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill
Cornell Medical Center are using the
motion-sensitive Nintendo Wii video
game console, along with traditional
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methods, to help patients recover from
life-changing injuries.
Patients hold wireless remotes that
control actions on screen. Players swing
the controller to simulate realistic motions,
like swinging a tennis racquet, swatting a
baseball for a homerun, among countless
other motions. For burn patients or any
patient with a skin graft, moving and
stretching the skin is very painful, but
imperative for a successful recovery.
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The Burn Centre is also employing
a special add-on to the Nintendo Wii
system, Guitar Hero III. The controller for
the game resembles a miniature guitar.
Patients strum a bar on the guitar’s
body and press color-coded buttons that
resemble notes. Therapists hope that
Guitar Hero will help patients with burns
on their hands, arms and shoulders to
regain fine-motor control. For details visit
http://www.med.cornell.edu/
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41