In such a fast moving field it’s often hard to keep up with new tools, research and activities that are worth following. Here are few stories that caught our attention recently. (Disclaimer: Many of these cover or were produced by members of our Advisory Board!)

Surveillance, Inc: How Western Tech Firms Are Helping Arab Dictators from engine room advisor Jillian York and Trevor Timm, this piece in The Atlantic looks at how the companies helping repressive forces crack down on internet users are profiting from 2011’s wave of citizen driven uprisings.

Exploring Russian Cyberspace: Digitally Mediated Collective Action and the Networked Public Sphere  is a new paper released by The Berkman Center. It investigates the relationship between the online and socio-political landscapes in Russia. Findings? To begin, the Russian internet is more open and free than you might have imagined.

Raspberry Pi network Plan for Online Free-Speech Role asks: could Rasberry Pi, an inexpensive computer developed by a UK based foundation, be a tool for advocates? One programmer thinks so.

VoIP Survey Results of NGOs, Human Rights Groups and Activists features the results from a survey deployed by engine room advisors The Guardian Project to find out what kinds of internet based voice communications tools activists were using. Click over there to see results.

In Websites Shine a Light on Petty Bribery Worldwide, The New York Times takes a look at the increase in – and impact of – websites like India’s ipaidabribe.com for reporting on experiences with small scale corruption.

In The Ethics of Face Recognition Technology, engine room advisors WITNESS get ready for the South By Southwest Panel on facial recognition technology by explaining the issue a bit.

 A 30 minute advocacy video from the California based non-profit Invisible Children makes even the most resolute digital activism proponents think twice about the value of low threshold acts of advocacy.

That’s what we’ve been looking at. Spot anything we didn’t? Tweet at us!