Taiwan Fights Dengue Fever with Data

The Center for Disease Control in Taiwan has implemented a geolocational initiative for response to an outbreak of dengue fever. GO

Breaking Silence, Eric Schmidt Says North Korea Needs Internet Freedom

Eric Schmidt has broken his radio silence on the subject of his North Korea trip. After returning to Beijing yesterday, Schmidt spoke frankly to members of the press, saying that it’s time for the DPRK to implement Internet freedoms. GO

To Increase Corporate Transparency, Denmark is Making Companies' Tax Records Available Online

A new database will make corporate tax records available to the public in Denmark, the result of legislation passed this summer that called for greater transparency in the Danish business sector. The database is the latest in a series of online transparency practices implemented by the Danish government. GO

A New Open Data Push from the Governor in New York State

In his State of the State speech Wednesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would implement a comprehensive statewide open data portal as part of a renewed focus on transparency. Called Open New York and culled from his list of campaign promises, the initiative aims to "harness technology to show how taxpayer money is being spent, showcase the great resources of the state, and foster productive engagement with government," Cuomo promised in his prepared remarks. GO

China's WeChat Now Automatically Censoring Social Media Updates

The Chinese mobile social media app WeChat is now automatically censoring certain keywords, in a further development to the Southern Weekly scandal that has rocked China’s netizens over the past week. GO

House Republicans Release More Data Catnip for Developers

The Government Printing Office has begun providing access to legislation from the 113th Congress in four compressed XML files — one for bills, one for resolutions, one for joint resolutions, and one for continuing resolutions.

This consolidates access to information about legislation in the House of Representatives. It is an incremental step forward for technologists who build tools that make it easier to explain to the rest of us what Congress is doing.

Citizen Journalists Tweet Mexico's Drug War, Replacing Traditional Media

Over the past several years, a growing number of Twitter users in cities throughout Mexico have taken to their feeds with real-time coverage of violent crime. Part public service, part journalism, sometimes completely anonymous, these feeds have become, in many cases, an alternative to traditional news media when it comes to coverage of the country’s escalating drug war. GO

Mobile Apps to Combat Street Harassment Follow Brutal Delhi Gang-Rape Case

Last month, techPresident reported on India’s first all-female hackathon, where many programmers focused on apps to help tackle issues of sexual harassment. Only a handful of days later, the country was shocked by a horrific gang-rape and murder case, in which a young medical student from Delhi who died after being brutally sexually assaulted on a moving bus became the symbol of an escalating crisis of violence against women. GO

Weekly Global Readings: Repression

From today, techPresident will publish a weekly global mashup of stories about the intersection of technology, democracy and civil society. GO

Schmidt and Richardson Have Arrived in North Korea and Are Touring Computer Facilities

Google’s Eric Schmidt arrived in North Korea earlier this week on a humanitarian visit led by former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. On Tuesday, the group — which also includes Google Ideas director Jared Cohen, formerly of the State Department — was taken on a whirlwind tour of computer facilities in the capital of Pyongyang. GO

New Organizing Institute Changes Leadership

Judith Freeman, one of the co-founders of the left-leaning New Organizing Institute In Washington, D.C. is leaving her post as its executive director at the end of March. She will be succeeded by the self-described "political data dude" Ethan Roeder, who most recently served as director of data on President Obama's re-election campaign. GO

Twitter Users Call Out Fraudulent Voter Registration in Kenya

Voter registration fraud in Kenya has been brought to the fore by Twitter users in the country, who are taking issue with political parties illegally inflating the number of their supporters. GO

House Floor Summaries available in Bulk XML Format

House floor summaries are now available for bulk download in XML format, the office of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) announced today. GO

New York's Chelsea Neighborhood Is the Latest Free Public Wifi Experiment

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on hand this morning to announce free wifi covering all the outdoor areas in a stretch of Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, from Eighth Avenue west and from Gansevoort Street to 19th Street.

The announcement is the latest in a patchwork of city gestures towards the idea that Internet access has transformed from luxury to necessity.

Chinese Microblogging Platform's Censor Claims the Company is On Netizens' Side

A long post on the Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo from a user claiming to be a manager at the company raises questions over Sina’s stance on government regulations that require it to censor user-generated content. GO

From Fire Box to Future Box: Boston's Looking to Repurpose an Old Standby

With the expansion of digital communications, the still-telegraph-enabled(!) fire alarm box is dying a slow death. But a recent initiative of the Boston Fire Department is looking to save the city’s 2,200 red sentinels from the flame, soliciting proposals to update a technology invented in the Boston area over 160 years ago, and whose upkeep costs the city $2 million annually. GO

The Library of Congress is Archiving 170 Billion Tweets — on Tape

When the Library of Congress teamed up with Twitter in 2010 to archive four years’ worth of activity on the microblogging platform, the aim was to preserve a slice of early-millennial life to future researchers. Now the two-hundred-year-old institution is grappling with the resulting 133 terabytes of data. GO

Without Fanfare, Google Removed Censorship Warnings from China Search in December

Google China appears to have removed a feature that warned users of the search engine that they were querying words censored by the government. The change to the Google.cn homepage is speculated to have occurred sometime early last month. GO