Traffic samaritan

Since September last year a mystery twitter going by the handle, Gidi Traffic, has been informing motorists in Lagos of traffic jams. In the last week of May, he was nominated for, but did not win, the Life-Saving Hero award at the Shorties—regarded as the Oscars of the social media world. But this resident of Nigeria’s largest city has proved reclusive and even refused to reveal his real name.

Bloggers aren’t journos

Bloggers hoping to close the gap between themselves and fully paid journalists had a setback after a New York court dismissed their multi-million-dollar lawsuit against The Huffington Post. The lawsuit called for compensation for exploiting its army of unpaid commentators.

Art with bugs

INSECTS make up about 80 per cent of the total number of living beings on the planet. Yet we know very little about them, and at times refer pejoratively to them as bugs and creepy crawlies. The site under review implores a rethink. And it uses the unlikely medium of art.

Bowing to web

The volumes once synonymous with the word encyclopaedia are going out of print. When this magazine hits stand, Encyclopaedia Britannica would have gone out of print, bringing an end to a 244-year-old history.

News Snippets

>> The Internet contributes to 8.3 per cent of the UK economy, a bigger share than for any other G20 major countries, a study by Boston Consultancy Group suggests. The Internet economy was worth £121 billion (about US$ 165 billion) in 2010, said the research organisation.

Letters - April 15, 2012

Authority to fight hunger

Putin’s 2 min

With broadcast and print media largely under state control in Russia, the Internet has lately been a key platform for opposition activism. There has been an outpour of visual art through social networks since the first anti-Vladimir Putin protests in the wake of suspected fraud in parliamentary elections in December, reports Hidden Transcript.

Google flies in face of privacy rules

Publishing bullies

There’s bad news for many cash-starved book lovers. Download portal Library.nu and cyberlocker ifile.it shut down “voluntarily” after publishers managed to get an injunction against the two sites.

News snippets

>> On February 16, the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office announced that Dozhd TV, an independent online TV station, was under investigation to determine who financed the channel’s live broadcasts of anti-Kremlin demonstrations on December 10 and 24. The probe was in response to a request from Robert Shlegel, a State Duma deputy from the United Russia party and a former spokesperson for the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi.