XIPWIRE opens platform to donate to WikiLeaks, after MasterCard, Visa stop

XIPWIRE, the Center City-based mobile payments company, has launched an online platform through which supporters can donate funding to the controversial WikiLeaks and the legal defense fund of its founder Julian Assange, as reported by Raw Story.

The move comes after major credit cards Visa and MasterCard, in addition to online payment giant PayPal, halted any payments to the nonprofit, which was the mechanism through which thousands of pages of classified U.S. government diplomatic documents were made public.

On the XIPWIRE WikiLeaks page, the following message is posted:

While people may or may not agree with WikiLeaks, we at XIPWIRE believe that anyone who wishes to support the organization through a donation should be able to do so.We are waiving all fees so that 100% of the donations collected will be directly passed on to WikiLeaks.

More from the Baltimore Sun’s technology blog here.

Do you think this is a brave or a dangerous act? Tell us below.

Common Cause PA honors Robert Cheetham, Azavea founder, software developer

You probably wouldn’t need to check IDs to confirm that most of those in attendance at Monday night’s Common Cause Pennsylvania 40th anniversary celebration were alive for the progressive citizen lobbying group’s debut in 1970.

The eighty, mostly gray-haired, people in attendance at the Center City Radisson at 17th and Locust streets saw another small piece of the nonprofit’s history. Though headlined by a women’s issues advocate and featuring a host of political candidates from elections past, for the first time in 10 years of giving out the award,  a software engineer was honored with the Common Cause PA Public Service Achievement Award.

“Robert Cheetham uses data for good,” said Chris Satullo of WHYY, who introduced the co-founder of Callowhill GIS software development company Azavea.

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Allan Frank: Philadelphia CTO is leaving, pointed city “the way to the promised land,” he says

Allan Frank

City of Philadelphia Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank is leaving government life, a press release announced and Frank confirmed Wednesday night.

As recent as this month, Frank spoke at a government employees meet up group about his forthcoming plans for the city’s IT direction. Frank will maintain some ties, serving as chair of the newly formed Mayor’s Advisory Board on Technology, in which he will remain involved in these projects.

“In actuality, there is no perfect time to leave,” Frank told Technically Philly. “I am confident in the new DOT leadership and talent I have attracted to continue the momentum.”

His last day, before returning to the private sector, will be Feb. 1, 2011 and, pending a national search for his replacement, Tommy Jones, the city’s first Deputy Chief Information Officer, will serve as interim CTO.

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Comcast Roundup: ‘Self regulation, not government mandates’ for internet and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Comcast executive: self-regulation, not government mandates, for Internet [Post Tech: Washington Post] — “Comcast executive vice president David Cohen will deliver a speech in Washington on Monday, where he will stress the role of self-regulation of the Internet.”
• Verizon echoes Comcast: Feds shouldn’t reign over Internet service providers [Post Tech: Washington Post] Tom Tauke, Verizon’s executive vice president of public affairs, says: “After haggling over the issue for over five years, we are essentially in the same place we were when this debate started… There still is no identifiable problem to be solved, and instead, as predicted, technology and market forces are ensuring that access to the Internet is open to consumers, as well as to developers of content and services.”
• Who Should Govern the Internet? [Comcast blog] — David L. Cohen says “The more important the Internet becomes, the more discussion, debate and pressure grows for more government involvement. In my talk at Brookings, I will suggest a path that relies primarily on the consensus-based self-governance model that has typified the Internet since its founding as a better alternative…” And follow up on the Comcast blog regarding the panel that followed Cohen’s keynote address.

Below, Comcast said to struggle with the Hollywood entertainment ecosystem, NBCU reshuffling detailed and more.

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Comcast Roundup: ‘Xbox Live now bigger than Comcast,’ why GOP win helps and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get ane-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Watch Out, Big Cable: Xbox Live Now Bigger Than Comcast [Gigaom via New York Times] Xbox Live’s 25 million subscribers tops Comcast’s 23 million, a figure that declined by a quarter million subscribers last quarter.
• Names You Need to Know In 2011: Comcast’s Steve Burke [Forbes] — A suggestion by a Forbes reporter to make him a part of an upcoming issue on the biggest new names to know, as Burke will be largely leading the integration of NBC Universal into Comcast. H/T Philly Tech News
• AT&T, Comcast May Fend Off Web Rules Under Republicans [Bloomberg via BusinessWeek] — “Verizon Communications Inc. and cable companies led by Comcast Corp. may find it easier to block Internet-service regulations with Republicans in charge of the U.S. House, analysts said.”
• Astros, Rockets finalize deal to launch TV network [Houston Chronicle] — Comcast SportsNet Houston to launch in 2010, seen as a big victory against Fox Sports, with whom local sports are currently being broadcast. It will be the tenth regional Comcast SportsNet.

Below, a TiVo executive on the Comcast-NBC deal, how Comcast could help make Philly a better city and more.

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DreamIt alumni Yunno tapped by Toomey campaign

After being digitally outmaneuvered in 2008, the Republican Party is looking to up their online efforts for tomorrow’s midterm elections — and they’re relying on a Philly startup to do it.

Yunno, the DreamIt Ventures graduate that offers social engagement campaigns to brands, has been working with Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey to help augment the campaign’s online strategy.

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RightNetwork’s Kevin McFeely bases ‘right-minded entertainment’ in Philadelphia

By a Philadelphian’s conventional stereotype, it might not seem terribly strange that a Georgian would be leading a new conservative cable channel startup.

It’s proving less understood that the Atlanta-based president and chief operating officer of RightNetwork is the outlier on staff, flying weekly to meet more than a dozen employees in their Center City headquarters.

Yet there is Kevin McFeely, the boyish 38-year-old chief whose career in content — including sales leads at Tech TV and the Anime Network — took him to Atlanta. Two years ago, he was brought on to help build out a concept for conservative entertainment. By summer 2009, it was decided that the world’s first cable channel dedicated to conservative entertainment would be based in Philadelphia.

Early in September, the channel officially launched, including on-demand content for Verizon FiOS users, online, mobiles phones and other distribution to start.

Today, he’s flying between familiar hubs of content and distribution, and suddenly Philadelphia is in the mix.Still, it’s tough to ignore the inherent politics of a cable channel promoted as being from an ideological perspective.

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Republican governor candidate Tom Corbett stumps on tech at Bentley

Bentley MicroStation visualization expert Jerry Flynn (left) shows Attorney General Corbett photorealistic 3D renderings specially created in MicroStation for use with 3D glasses.

The man who polls say would be Pennsylvania’s next governor if the election were held today spoke last week on the importance of high technology companies in creating high-paying jobs.

State Attorney General Tom Corbett, whose double-digit lead in the polls over Democratic gubernatorial challenger Dan Onoranto is slipping – though Corbett still enjoys a 10 point cushion – was out stumping at the Exton headquarters of infrastructure software giant Bentley Systems Wednesday.

Some in the region’s technology community may remember Corbett for his subpoenaing Twitter in May to unveil a series of anonymous users who were criticizing his candidacy.

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Today’s primary involves online advertising ballot question

The day’s primary polls in Philadelphia are open and lively already, and the Web, it would seem, is on the ballot.

In what most analysts are, of course, suspecting will be a low turnout affair and media coverage has focused on contested Democratic primaries for district attorney and city controller, one of two citywide ballot questions just might have implications for the future of online advertising.

As city political oversight group the Committee of Seventy explains the second of two ballot questions today: “currently, the Home Rule Charter imposes specific advertising requirements with respect to certain legal notices of the city.”

A yes vote on the question would allow City Council to change the avenues through which newly incorporated businesses, city contracts and public hearings are publicized.

It just might help kick newspapers when they’re down.

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Software development firm Avencia releases Philly election data

The primary election for a host of local candidates is being held Tuesday — from district attorney to city controller, municipal judges and others.

On the heels of releasing a new version of a subscription-based district-matching and legislative data API, Callowhill geographic analysis and software development firm Avencia released yesterday a free Web-based tool to search and map Philadelphia’s election results from 1992 to 2008 (click at bottom right to proceed anonymously for preview).

The application runs on Avencia’s Kaleidocade Indicators Framework, which enables users to visualize, interpret, and map large data sets. The “Philadelphia Election Results, 1992-2008″ application, the data set includes more than four million records, like the results of elections held in Philly for all state and national offices for those 16 years, along with the results of the 2007 elections for city offices, both at the precinct and the ward levels.

“This is a very important data set, one that doesn’t exist anywhere out there, so we’d like to expand it, by adding years further in the past and continuing to update it,” says spokeswoman Abby Fretz.

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