nowEurope Comments

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Bernhard Schmid — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:56:19 +0000

It´s always nice to have (good) feedback. I hope, the contact will be the start of a sucess story. Good luck and thank you!

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Steven Carlson — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:06:09 +0000

Thanks for letting us know about your good experience, Dieter!

We’re here to bring together people and their ideas. This happens regularly behind the screens, but it isn’t often celebrated.

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Dieter — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:38:30 +0000

A Christmas wonder happened – this forum established a contact between a person having an innovative idea and another person really interested in it.
That’s not a sensation; the forum exists for this reason.
No, for me the unexpected result of this contact was the mentioned Xmas wonder:
First time I had the possibility to show somebody my existing tool to demonstrate what I am talking about.

At least one person looked at it before giving me some useful hints or telling me, why it will not run.
I am looking forward to his comments hopefully coming soon.

Regards and a Happy New Year
Dieter.

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

User — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:29:02 +0000

I am doing a project involving the digital divide in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US for a quantitative methods class. I am testing for a correlation between high-tech device ownership and socioeconomic and demographic variables. The device ownership was measured by wardriving with Kismet on every street in 8 census block groups. The number of detected Wifi networks per block group was divided by the number of households in the block group. The presence of a Wifi router suggests ownership of broadband and one or more wireless devices. The ratio of networks to households is used as an index that can be compared to other data with regression.

There is more to the project than that, but it has its limitations. However, results from those 8 census block groups (3960 households and 854 networks in total) showed 9 variables with R-squared > .50 with linear regression. The number of networks increases with percentage of whites, vehicle ownership, being married with or without children, and with income. Number of networks detected decreases with percentage of blacks, percentage of children under the age of 5, percentage of single-parent households, and with mean household size. The percentage of whites had the highest R-squared with .897. Interestingly, median household income had the lowest R-squared (above .5) with .503

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

EUA vs. Europa « — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:57:58 +0000

[...] é mais ou menos permissiva com falências do que os EUA. Aparentemente a União Européia tem feito esforços no sentido de reduzir o chamado “estigma da falência” (uma idéia inteligente e que [...]

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

sraffa — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:53:06 +0000

Hi
Seems it was a great initative !
Filling the questionnaire wasn’t possible before closing date: how could we be informed of the results, please ?

Regards,
V. SRAFFA

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Steven Carlson — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:33:35 +0000

Another side of this issue is the concept of ‘bit literacy’, coined by Mark Hurst. His point is that many people - even the most wired people - just don’t know how to manage the flood of information they are already consuming. How do we extract real meaning and value from all the raw data?

Mark’s solution boils down to knowing how to use the delete key, and being selective about what data you consume and archive.

Here’s the site:
http://bitliteracy.com

And here’s a preview chapter:
http://bitliteracy.com/chap1.html

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Guenther Krumpak — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:46:31 +0000

Hi Jiri,
You tackle a problem typical for the statistical assessment of “unmeasureable” issues; my post on academic ranking dealt with a similar problem. Fact is, that there are people who don’t work with computers or do not have one at home and/or don’t use the internet etc. and/or do not know how to operate these devices/systems. The percentages vary, the show up in surveys such as “e-readiness Index” etc. A close relative of mine still uses a phone book, I don’t even have one anymore. “Computer Literacy” is a keyword in this context, and I think this is definitely an indicator of the Digital Divide discussion. I ask myself sometimes whether Literacy is the correct expression as many people who know how to make use of computer and internet cannot write correctly. Am I “literate”, if I can use the internet but do not have books at home? If I use an MP3 player but don’t know what happens in the world as I don’t read newspapers? (Those who don’t read them physically don’t read online either…)
There was this huge conference on “e-Inclusion” last week http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/e-inclusion/2008/conference/index_en.htm to improve Computer Literacy in Europe. I am not sure anymore if owning and using digital devices is really linked to litercy…

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Guenther Krumpak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:48:58 +0000

Just wanted to add that NFC was developed in Austria by the local R&D people of Philips Semiconductors in Graz ( Now NXP) and Sony, later on applied by Telekom Austria and others.

Is digital divide the statistical Yeti? | nowEurope

Guenther Krumpak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:45:55 +0000

Graz University is an excellent example of how to communicate technology transfer achievements. I have pointed out btheir center in my last book “Österreichs Digitale Wirtschaft 2008″ as I was so impressed by their approach. Pavel, I think your categorizing is absolutely hitting the point.