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The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society seeks an editor, or team of editors, for a one-year term. This is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to what we believe is one of the leading journals in its field, the journal’s associated conference and, more broadly, the knowledge-community which the journal and conference seek to serve.

The roles of the editor are to:

• write an introduction for the Journal volume which would be included in the first issue for the year, and possibly on the website, the newsletter and other appropriate places or for the purposes of marketing and promotion.
• collate papers addressing a theme of the editor’s choosing into a book, to be launched at the conference at the completion of the editor’s term. The chapters may be drawn from submissions to the journal during this or recent years, and other material as considered appropriate.
• actively solicit manuscripts for the Journal from well-known and notable members of the community—these would could be refereed if the author wished, or regarded as ‘invited papers’.
• assist the Commissioning Editor with suggestions of supplementary peer reviewers for specific papers (and this will never be burdensome – note that the Commissioning Editor of the Journal finalizes a majority of the peer reviewer requirements based on thematic matching and ‘mutual obligation’ principles in which all author requested to review up to three other papers).
• promote the journal throughout their network and other associated networks.
• maintain regular communications with the community via periodical blog posts to the community website (which feeds automatically to our email newsletter, Facebook and Twitter).

The editor will be offered a complimentary electronic subscription to the Journal, free copies of the book which they edit, an electronic subscription to the book series as well as complimentary registrations to attend the conferences at the beginning and end of their term.

Qualifications

The Editor of the Journal must possess the following attributes:

• They will have successfully obtained higher degree, and have academic teaching and scholarly research experience in an area related to the subject matter of the Journal.
• They will have published in this or other comparable scholarly journals.

Applicants are asked to send:

1. a cover letter outlining their interest and relevant experience, and the ways in which you would propose to enhance the profile of the journal
2. a curriculum vitae
3. a special theme outline: a title with paragraph explanation.

Please send applications and supporting documentation to journals@techandsoc.com

The deadline for applications is 26 September 2011.

From the Associated Press:

The Internet drama precipitated by WikiLeaks’ release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables has been called the first “global cyberwar.” But at closer look it’s really more of an amateur brawl.

Although big businesses such as Mastercard and Visa were ensnared, the so-called “Hacktivists” didn’t do serious harm. And while one of the “big boys” of the Internet —Amazon.com — was an obvious target after it snubbed WikiLeaks, the hackers held off, fearing Amazon was too difficult to get.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks revealed itself to be less than sophisticated when it came to maintaining an online presence.

The secrets-spreading site was caught flatfooted when attacks and legitimate traffic overwhelmed it on Nov. 28, the day it started releasing the cables.

It reacted by moving the website from a Swedish base to Amazon.com‘s hosting facility. Because Amazon is self-service, WikiLeaks didn’t need any pre-established relationship with the company. Amazon has ample capacity and can withstand hacker attacks.

But there was a major downside: Moving the site to the U.S., where the cables originated, exposed it to political pressure.

Congressional staffers called Amazon.com Inc. on Nov. 30 to ask about its relationship with WikiLeaks. The next day, the company shut down the WikiLeaks site for distributing documents it didn’t own. That sent WikiLeaks scrambling to re-establish its Web presence in Europe.

For more…

Kids using the imaginary Dynabook

From Kurt Bakke at ConceivablyTech.com:

Giving Apple credit for reshaping the way we use computers, well at least attempting it, would be a bit too much. Apple simply built a device that was imagined and described in detail in a research paper 38 years ago. Reading that paper is a spooky experience – it is fascinating how closely the author describes what the iPad is today. He even got the price right – almost four decades ago.

I previously attempted to take shot at the iPad’s ancestors. I believe this is a rather difficult task if we look at recent history and really depends on your viewpoint and in this case, you will read what I think. For some reason, you know it is one of those occasions you just get stuck reading late in the day, I stumbled across a fascinating research paper that gets more and more stunning as you read along. It is called “A personal computer for children of all ages” and was published by Alan Kay of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) back in 1972.

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