(MB note: The following is part of a new article I’m writing on maps of the future. As I develop the article I’ll post my research here, highlighting some of my favorite maps.)

On January 17th the following things happened:

Protesters gathered in groups and attempted to walk into the town centre; police fired live shots and tear gas canisters to disperse them.  Three protesters were seriously injured and one shot dead.

Police battled youths who set fire to roadblocks; the police shot indiscriminately, “targeting anyone on sight”; one man was shot in the stomach as he stood in front of his house.

A 13-year old boy was laid to rest next to his uncle´s house; the burial was attended by hundreds of residents who wailed and lit up bonfires.

Most likely, you didn’t hear or see these stories, except in perhaps an aggregate way: they all happened in Kenya, a result of the post-election violence which engulfed the country.  In situations such as these, the major media outlets give the world a “big picture” view of the crisis: violence, rioting, bloodshed, deaths. But the individual events, the microcosmic acts of violence, go largely unreported.  They aren’t, however, unseen.

In the days following the Kenyan crisis, a group of Kenyan bloggers from both inside and outside of the country got together and created a website to map the spread of violence.  The site, called Ushahidi, allows users to report incidents of violence (as well as peace efforts) via the web or SMS.  Incidents are verified and then uploaded to Ushahidi’s site and displayed on a geo-tagged map.   The site also features a tool that allows for a “timeline” view of events (see below). The value of the site isn’t in its archival capabilities; as Global Voice’s Ethan Zuckerman wrote in this post, the importance of Ushahidi is helping people visualize the spread of violence in real time.

Why is this important? With all of the famines, wars, floods and other crises in the world today, what good will visualizing the chaos in Kenya do?  Friend and fellow blogger Erik Hersman, one of the founders of Ushahidi, answers this question in the most eloquent way I’ve seen yet.  In this post he suggests that a digitally connected world not only grants us a front row seat to the rest of the world, but also the power to influence events and create change in a way that was impossible just a few short decades ago.  So that events that may occur thousands of miles away are in fact - quite literally - in our digital backyard.  Which makes it a lot harder to just sit back and watch.

Ushahidi is a potent example of the power of what I (and many others) call “collaborative cartography.” Rather than simply create user-generated maps of local wifi hotspots or cool coffee shops, however, maps like Ushahidi have the potential to effect change. As part of its annual conference, Netsquared is hosting a competition to identify the best mapping mashups geared toward accelerating social change. Ushahidi is in the running, as are others like the Rosetta Project. Voting is open to the public until the end of the day Friday; the top twenty will receive a share of $100k in prize money to further develop their sites.   You can support projects like Ushahidi by voting here.

While I’m not a fan of re-blogging, Technology Review’s “10 Emerging Technologies 2007″ list (featured in the March/April edition) deserves a little more digital ink if only because since the magazine’s redesign the articles tend to be, shall we say, heavy on the geek factor. So unless your idea of an afternoon well-spent includes reading excerpts of lab research entitled “High Performance Elastomeric Nanocomposites via Solvent Exchange Processing”, you may have missed TR’s annual top ten - which by itself, is actually a page-turner. Here’s a cheat sheet to the annual top ten:

Peer-to-Peer Video

The Problem: The Internet is headed toward a giant data traffic jam. Today video content and applications account for more than 60 percent of Internet traffic; some say that figure could climb as high as 98 percent in just a few years, causing downloads to slow to a crawl. In short, the information superhighway is increasingly being clogged up by bandwidth-guzzling SUVs in the form of “Lost” reruns, YouTube videos and webisodes of beer commercials.

The Solution: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) “mesh” networks which distribute data across a networks of user’s PCs rather than through a content-owner’s central server, saving bandwidth in the Internet’s core. P2P networks such as Gnutella, Kazaa and BitTorrent have been hugely successful with users - and maligned by content owners who see them as just another word for piracy. But several projects underway including Pittsburgh-based start-up Rinera Networks are developing new models - such as adding a “toll booth” for P2P networks for heavy users - that aim to stabilize the traffic flow and ensure smooth surfing.

Quantum Dot Solar Power

The big idea: Quantum dots - tiny crystals of semiconductors just a few nanometers wide - could finally make solar power cost-competitive with electricity from fossil fuels. Arthur Noziak, a senior research fellow at the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory calculates that a photovoltaic device based on quantum dots could have a maximum efficiency of 42 percent, far better than the 31 percent achieved by silicon semiconductors used in today’s PV cells.

Neuron Control

Key to understanding the chemical imbalances underlying depression and other neurological disorders is identifying which cells are responsible. Researchers have developed a novel way of doing just that by literally lighting up specific neurons in the brain. Karl Deisseroth and his team at Stanford Medical Center have genetically engineered neurons to produce a protein which, when exposed to light, triggers activity in the neurons (literally turning them ?on’). The “light switch” lets scientists turn selected parts of the brain on and off may open the door to precisely targeted treatments for psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Nanohealing

The ability to control bleeding in an operating room or at an accident site would represent a paradigm shift in medicine, saving thousands of lives and making surgery faster and safer. Today about 50 percent of the time spent in a typical surgery is trying to control bleeding, and the methods doctors use today - such as clamps, cauterization and vasoconstriction - are invasive and often cause collateral damage. Which is why researchers at MIT and Hong Kong University are excited about the potential of a simple biodegradable liquid which has been shown to stop bleeding in wounded rats in seconds. When the liquid, composed of protein fragments called peptides, is applied to open wounds, the peptides self-assemble into a nanoscale protective barrier gel that seals the wound and halts bleeding. Once the injury heals, the nontoxic gel is broken down into molecules that cells can use as building blocks for tissue repair. While the research is considered very preliminary, if tests go well it could be approved for human use in three to five years.

Augmented Reality

You’re in Rome, staring at a centuries-old sculpture that has obvious historical significance - but the plaque describing the piece isn’t in English and your high school Italian is more than a little rusty. What to doWell, if you happen to have a prototype of Nokia’s Mobile Augmented Reality smart phone in your hand, you’re in luck. The prototype sports a GPS sensor, a compass, and accelerometers. Using data from these sensors, the phone can calculate the location of just about any object its camera is aimed at. Users can then download additional information, such as the name of the sculpture (in your native tongue) as well as the location of nearby souvenir shops that sell replicas.

While Nokia’s system uses locative sensors to superimpose digital information on the real world, other applications in development use a different approach; Total Immersion in Suresnes, France and Google’s recently-acquired Neven Vision are betting on image-recognition software to do the trick. After decades of lab research “augmented reality” apps are ready to hit the street. Coming soon to a phone near you: your world, annotated.

(MB note: While TR’s piece focused on Nokia, the company is just one of the players in the emerging field known as “collaborative cartography“)

Personalized Medical Monitors

MIT researchers are developing algorithms to help doctors efficiently interpret EKG, EEG, and other ever-growing masses of medical data and quickly perceive patterns that might otherwise be buried. Future applications include personalized medical monitors which can sense - and stop - an oncoming seizure in an epilepsy patient.

Compressive Sensing

Using a technique known as compressive sensing, Rice University engineers have developed a camera that uses a single image sensor to collect just enough information to let a novel algorithm reconstruct a high-resolution image. The technology could produce MRI systems that capture images up to 10 times as quickly as today’s scanners and tiny mobile-phone cameras that produce high-quality, poster-size images.

Metamaterials

Artificially structured metamaterials (composites made up of precisely arranged patterns of two or more distinct materials) are opening up an entirely new approach to optics. By manipulating electromagnetic radiation (including light) metamaterials have the potential to transform a range of industries such telecommunications, data storage and even solar energy.

Optical Antennas

Who needs NetflixResearchers have created light-focusing optical antennas that could lead to the development of DVD-like discs that store 3.5 terabytes of data - the equivalent of 750 of today’s recordable DVD’s.

Single Cell Analysis

Norman Dovichi’s University of Washington lab is pioneering the science of single cell biology. The techniques he and his colleagues have developed to isolate cells and reveal specific molecules inside are exposing the differences between individual cells and could lead to better, more precise diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer and diabetes