Digital Disruption

John Domokos and Haroon Siddique, Guardian, How young Muslims are fighting extremist propaganda, 29 Jan 2010

"The communities secretary, John Denham, has promised to make changes to the anti-extremism programme Prevent after Islamic groups accused it of stigmatising all Muslims as terrrorists and even spying on them. Haroon Siddique talks to participants on one of the schemes, the Digital Disruption project, about the value of what they are learning."

There's an interesting video attached to the above page.

Mohammed Atif Siddique

Guardian, Mohammed Atif Siddique terror conviction set to be quashed, 29 Jan 2010, "He was convicted of possessing and collecting items such as CDs and videos on weapons use, guerrilla tactics and bomb-making, as well as setting up websites with links to terrorist publications that showed how to use weapons and make bombs, distributing terrorist publications via links on a website, and causing a breach of the peace at Glasgow Metropolitan College by threatening to become a suicide bomber."

Ali Gomaa on phonetones

IslamOnline, Setting Qur'anic Verses as Ringtones: Permissible?, 28 Jan 2010

"Dr. Ali Jum`ah, the current grand mufti of Egypt, stated,

""Setting Qur'anic verses and the Adhan as mobile ringtones is legally impermissible, since Almighty Allah's words are sacred and should not be used in any way that drives them out of their Shari`ah framework.It is improper, and even immoral, to use the Glorious Qur'an instead of ringtones for mobile phones, since it has the sanctity and sublimity that exalt and elevate it above such a use. Almighty Allah says, (That [is the command]. And whoso magnifies the offerings consecrated to Allah, it surely is from devotion of the hearts) (Al-Hajj 22:32).""

Update on earlier reported opinion

iPad

الآي-باد يدعم قراءة اللغة العربية, iphoneislam.com

Article discussing the iPad, suggesting that the product will read Arabic, but the keyboard will (at least in early versions) not be usable for Arabic.

Not sure if I'll be rushing to the Apple store for one of these; think I'll see what happens with early versions, and wait for one with full Flash etc. unless anyone wants to offer me a sample to test drive. They may want to re-name it for the Arabic market...

Also see Guardian, Apple iPad: the first review, 27 Jan 2010

'Communications Capabilities Directorate'

Chris Williams, The Register, Home Office spawns new unit to expand internet surveillance, 28 Jan 2010, "The Home Office has created a new unit to oversee a massive increase in surveillance of the internet, The Register has learned, quashing suggestions the plans are on hold until after the election.

"The new Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) has been created as a structure to implement the £2bn Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), sources said."

Tip: Ubiwar

Twitter against censorship

John Gapper, FT, Twitter works on method to foil censors, 28 Jan 2010 "Twitter, the internet social network, is developing technology it hopes will prevent the Chinese and Iranian governments being able to censor its users.

"Evan Williams, the chief executive and co-founder of Twitter, which has been credited with helping anti-government protesters in Iran to organise resistance, said software developers were working on "interesting hacks" to stop any blocking by foreign governments."

COMEX

globalarabnetwork.com, Digital society in Oman - OITE, ICT experts gear up for COMEX 2010, 28 Jan 2010 "With the vision to build a digital society in Oman, organizers of COMEX – the country’s IT, telecom and technology event, OITE, and its COMEX Advisory Committee recently convened to discuss major decisions to boost the capacity and strength of the Sultanate’s largest ICT event."

Here's the exhibition's website

Digerati Indonesia

Vishnu Mahmud,CNET, Digerati Indonesia, Documenting the rise of Digital Indonesia,28 Jan 2010

"America is once again back in the limelight with many Indonesians. The US is still the best place in the world to start a business, has the best schools, and is one of the stronger economies globally with a free press. That said, the US embassy in Jakarta has a lot to do to help reengage potential students, business partners and immigrants who have previously looked to Canada or New Zealand.

"So how is it going to do the job? With the Internet's help, of course."

Q&A "goes viral"

insidevandy.com, Vanderbilt 'Muslims in the Military' event goes viral, 28 Jan 2010

"“Common Ground: Being Muslim in the Military,” an event designed to explore the involvement in Muslims in the military earlier this week, resulted in heated exchanges between a Muslim chaplain at Vanderbilt and the vice president of the national Youth for Western Civilization organization."

Not quite sure how 'viral' or 'heated' this is at present. Article links to video edit (obviously part of a wider Q&A).

Regulating 'the fatwa industry'

Rachelle Kliger, Jerusalem Post, Saudis to Regulate ‘Chaotic Fatwas’,28 Jan 2010 "“If the Saudi authorities regulate the fatwa industry, it will reduce the amount of extreme fatwas and it will send a positive message to those who are irresponsible and unaccountable with their fatwas,” Dr. Khalil Al-Khalil, a former Saudi member of parliament and an expert on Islamic trends, told The Media Line.

"“It will send them a message that they are not doing the right thing.”Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmad Bin Abd Al-Aziz Bin Baz told Al-Arabiyya that the issuance of fatwas, or religious scholarly opinions, in the Saudi kingdom had gotten out of hand to the extent there was a need to regulate and unify them.

"The Saudi authorities are mainly concerned about extreme fatwas that are being disseminated via mass-media forms such as the Internet and satellite television""

The power of hip-hop

Independent, Listen up, Auschwitz survivor is hip-hop MC, 28 Jan 2010, "Esther Bejarano says music helped to keep her alive as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. Now, 65 years after the liberation of the Nazi death camp, she has teamed up with a German hip-hop band to get her anti-racism message to today's youth.

" ... About two years ago, Kutlu Yurtseven, a Turkish rapper from Microphone Mafia, asked her about a collaboration to combat the growing racism and anti-Semitism in Germany. The octogenarian thought hip-hop "was really a bit too loud" but saw it as a way to reach Germany's youth.

""We want to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive, but at the same time look into the future and encourage young people to take a stand against new Nazis," she said. "I know what racism can lead to and the members of Microphone Mafia are immigrants and have experienced their share of discrimination as well.""

Microphone Mafia

There's an Amazon.de link here to the album, which has samplers of the tracks.

A link to a TV programme: "PER LA VITA – Bejaranos + Microphone Mafia" (Dokumentarfilm, D 2010, 60 min [unfortunately no programme online]

Microphone Mafia MySpace

iMuslims listed

The American Library Journal has iMuslims in 7th place in the "bestsellers in religion" list

Social networking research

Dalia Yusuf, IslamOnline, Muslim-Christian Interactions on Facebook, Easing or Increasing Tensions? "Studying the Social Network Sites (SNSs) makes people resurface many questions about establishing and maintaining various networks. SNSs are web-based channels for different groups who share interests and activities." [brief reference to Virtually Islamic

iMuslims Review

There's a review by Robert Rozehnal [Lehigh University] of iMuslims in the Winter 2010 edition of Middle East Journal [subscriber only]. "With its broad scope and accessible style, it is well suited for use in both undergraduate and graduate courses on Islam. The book also will appeal to a wide audience interested in media studies, the anthropology of religion, and the dynamism of the 21st century Muslim world."

Yahoo Arabic search

Gaith Saqer, arabcrunch.com, Yahoo! Launches Arabic Search via Maktoob "Yahoo Arabic search is run on Yahoo!’s own search engine not Microsoft’s bing. Yahoo Arabic search competes not just with Google’s Arabic search but with Jabbar Group’s Araby search engine, which used to be part of Maktoob Group!"

Egypt

meedan.net, Egypt celebrates ‘Police Day,’ activist say stop targeting bloggers "Human rights advocates are calling Monday’s observation of Police Day in Egypt a mockery in light of the recent six-month sentence of blogger Wael Abbas who is known for exposing police brutality."

Yahoo big in Indonesia

arabcrunch.com, Opera: Yahoo! More Popular Than Google in Indonesia. "According to Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report, In Southeast Asia among mobile-Web users, Google is at the top of the rankings for numerous countries, with the very significant exception of Indonesia where Google is only at #6 and Yahoo! is at #2. The vast majority of Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia are in Indonesia.

"On the other hand, Facebook is now the most-visited social network on the mobile. Unique users of Facebook grew more than 600% during 2009, helping the site surpass VKontakte, formerly the most popular social network among Opera Mini users. Twitter saw its usage increase more than any other social network, surging more than 2800% in just one year."

see Opera, State of the Mobile Web, December 2009

'Top of the blogs'

kippreport.com, ArabCrunch Ranked in the Top 25 Blogs Worldwide, First in the Arab World, 24 Jan 2010

iWait

kippreport.com, Mideast awaits Apple’s iTablet – or perhaps iPad, or iSlate, 26 Jan 2010 "The Apple tablet is expected to have a 10in touchscreen, and internet connectivity over Wi-Fi and 3G. It is likely to resemble a large iPhone, but with some extra bells and whistles to wow consumers. It won’t have a keyboard, but is likely to play movies and music, and work as an eBook reader." It's not just the Middle East that is waiting for this one.

ICT in ME

globalarabnetwork.com, ICT market: the Middle East has the best growth potential in 2010, 24 Jan 2010 "Research covering the international information and communications technology (ICT) markets shows that the Middle East has the best growth potential in 2010. IDC MEA, the top market intelligence and advisory firm serving the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (MEA) territories, will gather 100 of the region's top ICT decision makers to discuss industry opportunities, trends and best practices at the upcoming IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2010 to be held from January 24 to 25, 2010 at the Madinat Jumeirah Resort in Dubai." PR related