This direct mail campaign is incredibly effective in how it brings forth childhood memories for many while emphasising the reality of those who may never have one: Child soldiers in countries such as Africa. The campaign may be aiming to find corporate sponsorships, but they’ve earned a cheque from me, too. [Direct Daily]

And yes, the photographer and videographer apparently had no idea. [National Geographic via Neatorama]

“This is basically a dynamo which is being driven as a result of friction between the ground and the blocks. The small yellowish blocks (these are covered by rubber in the real commercial product) rotate as you pull it. They are designed to rotate even on bumpy run even roads. We have tested it on moist lawns and have worked. It is very smooth so much that you basically don’t feel any disturbance as you move along.

At normal walking speeds we have gotten more than 2 watts which is more than enough for running cell phones or radios. I envision that people will attach this to themselves and walk with it – or even attach it to an ox-cart, a skating board, bike, etc.”

It seems absurd (and it certainly looks absurd), but harnessing wasted movement to generate electricity is an idea that has a lot of potential.

Even though the rats being used are the Giant Gambian variety, they’re still too light to set off most mines that they find. Trainers devised a harness that guides the rats systematically over a 100-meter square area, and a team of two can clear two such 100 square meter fields in a day. When they find the mines, they’re rewarded with bananas.

The project has been going on for several years in multiple mine-strewn African zones, with some pretty significant success. You can donate by adopting a mine-sniffing rat online at, appropriately, HeroRat.org. [Hero Rats via Afrigadget]

I don’t think the OLPC folks are advocating doing the ol’ switcheroo–XO for AK-47–to eradicate such horrors as the ones depicted on the spot. No, I think the ad does a great job in reminding us that, hey, this project was started for a serious reason. It’s not OLPC’s fault that they spawned an entirely new laptop category with plenty of consumer frenzy and ridiculousness behind it in the process.

The ad is intended only for the internet. [OLPC Ad on Daily Motion via Laptop, Gadget Lab]

Pachyderm rescue group Save the Elephants started the scheme up after five elephants who refused to stop raiding crops had to be shot by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The project, still in its infancy, is expensive to implement and not without its troubles. But it’s already saved the life of one regular crop fiend, a bull named Kimari who’s been intercepted 15 times since he was first connected. [Daily Mail via Switched]

Google and their partners threw in US$60 million out of the required $150-$180m into the kitty of O3b Networks (the other 3 billion, get it?), the firm established to launch the satellites and manage the initiative. A satellite downlink is of course only the first step in setting up a fresh broadband network, but the company also has plans to convert mobile phone towers into multipurpose high-speed network nodes, which when complete is estimated to cost US$750m all told. When the satellites are launched in 2010, that’s one step closer to 3 billion more new Googlers, looking at AdSense ads all the way, of course. [Financial Times via /.]

The new design comes at the request of Ericsson, which wanted an alternative to a purely diesel-run base station. Those consume roughly 20,000 litres (5,283 gallons) of diesel per year – an increasingly costly expense with rising world energy prices.

The E-Site draws its power from a wind turbine in the network tower and solar panels on the roof. Clean energy sources charge a battery that then powers the base station at night. The E-site also has a small diesel generator, just in case the batteries run out.

What’s even more amazing is the E-site’s operating system, which can learn to adapt its power-generating techniques to different situations. For instance, if the batteries are running low at night, but the system knows the sun will rise soon, it can decide to wait it out until morning rather than head straight towards the diesel. Good thinking, E-site! [Cnet]

Security specialists at F-Secure have drawn up a report with three maps that create—perhaps unintentionally—a compelling narrative of the way malware reflects the changing economic situation around the globe.

Back in the day (1986 to 2003), computer viruses mainly came from developed, predominantly white regions, US, Europe and Australia, along with India. There were anomalies like the Philippines-originated “Love Bug,” but by and large, it seemed computer viruses could be chalked up as a by-product of the technological success of the post-industrial world. The hackers themselves were effete, tea-sipping “hobbyists,” out to perfect their skills—not steal millions.
Next came the pros from Eastern Europe, China and Brazil. For the past four or five years, it’s been a full-on assault from the regions where high-level computer skills are plentiful, but legit employment opportunities like those found at Redmond, Mountain View or Cupertino are slim to none. Broadband roll-out and a border-free internet have given these guys plenty of opportunities for targeted attacks with cash money—okay, credit-card and bank-account info—as the deliberate end result.In the future, though, new e-criminals will most likely operate out of regions that seem a bit more surprising, such as Mexico and Africa. Part of the reason is that internet usage is fast increasing in those areas, while the requisite IT job growth or technological-age legal system that naturally keep the ruffians in check are not developing as fast. Pour a little political discord on top of that, and you’ve got one hell of a haven for hackers.

India will also see a resurgence in criminal activity, mainly because the job opportunities will never keep up with the number of people being trained with high-level computer skills, in spite of the country’s rapid growth.[F-Secure]

It not only lets the few dozen people in that country who have credit cards swipe them in this device, but it also prints out a receipt and sends the charge data via the cell network to the mothership. Kidding aside, this might actually make life safer in Africa, eliminating the need to transport cash, a dangerous proposition since not that much cash is around anyway.

But what about the dearth of credit card holders on that continent? Given the nature of the subprime credit card companies here in the States, we’re thinking there might be a rush to blanket Africa with credit cards now. [Swift Global, via bb Gadgets]