September 30, 2002
Suddenly a co-author of a book on the Japanese National ID
21:51 UTC » Books - Japanese Culture - Japanese National ID - Joi's Diary - Privacy
I had asked Gosuke to ghost write a short article for the Tokyo Shimbun (newspaper) based on a discussion with me. It was about the problems with the National ID. (I DID review it.) Then, I was asked to write an blurb in a book about the National ID so I asked Gosuke to add some more of my thoughts to the aritcle and we gave it to the publisher. Before I knew it, with the mere contribution of a 2 page ghost-written article, I was the co-author of the book, my name on the front of the book as if I had done something important. Luckily, the co-author is Yoshiko Sakurai who I respect deepy. All of the royalties go to the protest movement. So, I guess some people are trying to make sure I don't look too co-opted by the government. ;-)
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Marko Ahtissari - Nokia/Aula
00:19 UTC » Joi's Diary - Privacy - Wireless and Mobile
I'm blogging this a bit late, but Marko, Ilkka, Shu and Martti from Nokia Ventures Organization visited last week. We talked about the future. Their mission is to do a lot of long term thinking about Nokia. I blabbed about blogs, privacy and all of the other things I love. Howard was the one that got us hooked up. Marko worked on setting up Aula, a project in Finland that I love. I had met Jryi and some others from Aula when they visited Tokyo and have been a fan ever since. Aula is this great space in Finland that is kind of a new space/community/incubator... You should go look at their site to learn more.
Marko Ahtisaari was born in Helsinki, Finland and grew up in Helsinki, Dar es Salaam and New York. He studied economics, philosophy and music at Columbia University in the City of New York where he subsequently lectured in logic, philosophy of economics and the history of thought. He went on to be the leader of the mobile practice at the design consultancy Satama Interactive. Currently Marko works in the Nokia Ventures Organization. In the in-between moments he makes music.
Tallking to Marko reminded me of talking to Jyri which involved getting really excited and a feeling sorry that we ran out of time. Marko's team at Nokia gets to do some really long term thinking and we all agreed blogs on mobile phones made sense.
I tried to get them to increase priority on privacy.
Marko Ahtisaari
I suppose public persons, whether by choice or accident, don’t have the luxury of the distinction between what Joi Ito calls entifying and identifying (following Roger Clarke). Talking to Joi has convinced me to start thinking harder about privacy.
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Last Dinner in Tokyo with Megan and Kara
00:05 UTC » Eating and Cooking - Joi's Diary - Photo - Wireless and Mobile
Today will probably be Kara, Megan and Louie's last night in Tokyo. They invited me out to dinner. We ate at the Monsoon Cafe in Asabu Jyuban that is owned by Global Dining. Jun is on the board of Global Dining and Hasegawa-san, an amazing guy that I truely respect runs Global Dining...
Kawashima-san from the Japan Society (they sponsored Kara's trip), Megan's friend Takemura-san (an architect), Brett from AOL and Neerja Neeraj, the CEO of imaHima joined as well. I had been hearing about Neerja Neeraj from Howard and others and it was great to finally meet him. He was an extremely friendly and straight forward guy. I'm going to see if he can help me get this blog mobile phone enabled...
Brett knows Howard and Justin... What an extremely small world...
Neerja did the IM for i-mode for AOL and it launches the day after tomorrow. I saw a demo. It looks REALLY cool. It's probably the first real IM running on i-mode.
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September 29, 2002
Self-Censorship
06:58 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Introspective
Jane wrote in the last item about self-censorship. Well, this morning I had a good chance to test it out.
I had added a comment to the last entry about a wild night last night. It had some pretty graphic stuff like Takemoto-san giving Jun a big kiss, and was a BIT too much, so I deleted it.
Obviously I was more drunk than I thought. It had the tell-tale bad spelling. Some of the worst emails I've ever sent were sent when I had had too much to drink. The REALLY SCARY thing is that you can really think you are sober when you writing these stupid things. Last night I remember thinking about whether it was appropriate and trying to figure out how drunk I was. Well, whatever I thought, I was wrong. ;-o
So now I've just discovered another interesting thing about blogs. Unless someone copies and saves or crawles and caches your entry, you have a little time to delete it before it becomes final. This is better than email where once you hit send, it's sent.
So, I apologize to anyone who read my last comment and thought it was in bad taste. On the other hand, I apologize to those who didn't read it and are now wondering what it said. ;-)
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September 28, 2002
Strange Dream at Maholova Minds
This is a real picture from the guest information book in the room. "It's a great pleasure to stay with us." Ya... right.
We arrived last night at Maholova Minds to have a weekend off-site about "the space." Chris and Barak flew in from the US. Michiel, our intern from Hitotsubashi was coordinating the event with Barak. I was in Europe when they were deciding the place, so while it is not my fault, I am also not blaming anyone in particular since I said I this place sounded fine. We are in a hotel sort of place dedicated to off-sites called Maholova Minds in Miura beach near Tokyo. It was a sweaty train ride Friday night through rush hour Tokyo with our bags. It was kind of raining as we left Tokyo on the subway and it was still raining an hour and a half later when we dragged our bags up a hill from the train station to Maholova Minds.
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September 27, 2002
Esther Dyson thanks us and makes fun of John Gage
10:56 UTC » Joi's Diary - Wireless and Mobile
Cool! I was officially recognized as a "Japanese digital entrepreneur/venture capitalist" by Esther Dyson! Saw this article today for the first time. (Thanks Frank!) This about the Fortune Brainstorming Conference I blogged about. I brought everyone the MELCO Airstation. It is the smallest 802.11b access point that I know of. Recently, all port-a-demo pitches in Japan of network technologies involve one of these little guys.
Esther Dyson - NYT SyndicateThe Wi-Fi Warrior
by Esther Dyson
distributed by the New York Times Syndicate - August 07, 2002 excerpt THANKS FOR HELPING The system worked flawlessly for me, but somehow Farber was having trouble with it. Gage decided to "help" him. As you might expect, it was only after Gage stopped "helping" that Farber got his laptop working, and everyone was happy. (Sorry, John!) Once online, Farber told our story to Joichi Ito, a Japanese digital entrepreneur/venture capitalist who was joining us in Aspen for the second conference, a far bigger affair. Ito promised to bring some Japanese access points, much smaller ones, costing only about $150 each from a company called Melco. But the drama wasn't over. Now we had to persuade the organizers of the next event to keep the line alive (at $500 per day). The normal price at home would be no more than about $50 per month. Somehow we succeeded. Gage brought his AirPort back and the next conference was fully wired -- at least in the hotel basement. Finally, for a third conference, at the Aspen Institute, I found yet another unused DSL line. This time, I had my own device -- one of Melco's Buffalo AirStations that Ito had brought. It came in a nice box, covered in Japanese documentation that I couldn't read, and weighed only about 6 ounces, just a third of the AirPort's weight.
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Justin Sneaks Past Immigration
08:34 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Joi's Diary - Privacy
So I've been helping Justin try to get his Journalist Visa for Japan. I wrote a letter and helped him get one which got taken away the when he left Japan last time. Now he is applying for another one and I've written another letter.
Justin Hall
Update: They asked my sponsor, Joichi Ito, to call (because he is Japanese, he might "understand the nuance" they suggested). He did, from Europe. Nice of him. He reports, "They didn't ask me anything, but told me that the Tokyo office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was reviewing your case and that they would then consult the MOJ. That's all they said. They said this is not necessarily standard procedure, but also not uncommon. Maybe the "nuance" they wanted to convey was that they are wrapped up in a bureaucratic mess..."
He needed to come to Tokyo for the game show so he snuck back in. (I don't actually know if he did anything illegal, but it sounds sneaky.) He posted it his sneaking on his web page. In wonder if immigration reads his page. Hmm... I wonder if they read my blog. ;-)
Justin Hall
I had half a breath held at immigration but my two-day-old passport was free of incriminiating stamps or damamge and so I was permitted to enter Japan without a second glance. Adventure can be created by concern, my worry that I was bound to be kept back. So having that relieved made me nearly ecstatic, restraining a loud yell in the airport.
Immigration is the most aweful thing that I ever have to deal with in my life. It impacts taxes, travel and basic human dignity. You have no rights, they don't tell you anything and basically sucks. Anything not to have to deal with immigration is great. That's what is wonderful about traveling in Europe. I RARELY have to every show my passport and have never had a bad experience.
As we all know, the US is terrible. They throw people into little cells and strip search people regularly. At least Justin is unlikely to have that done to him in Japan. (Even if they do see his picture on his site and keep an eye out for him the next time he comes through Narita...)
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The new "Shorter" Oxford English Dictionary
Another one from BoingBoing
I truely love the OED and this new edition sounds cool. "bunny-hugger" in the OED is really something I must ponder tonight. I'm going to go to amazon now to buy this...
AskOxford.comThe essence of the Oxford English Dictionary2002 is indeed an auspicious year. It is the first year that can celebrate a World Cup, a Royal Jubilee, and a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. In terms of frequency, a new Shorter comes between the other two events: it is almost ten years since the previous edition, and this is only the fifth edition of a book that was first published in 1933.
People often point out that 'Shorter' is a strange title for a two volume work. Of course it's only 'Short' when compared to the twenty volumes of the full Oxford English Dictionary. Although one tenth the size of the OED, it manages to include around one third of its content: it aims to include all words used in English since 1700, as well as everything in Shakespeare, the Authorized Version of the Bible, the poetry of Milton, and Spenser's Faerie Queene. As a historical dictionary, it includes obsolete words if they are used by major authors and earlier meanings where they explain the development of a word. More than ten centuries of English are covered here, from the Old English period to the 21st century.
Some 3,500 new entries have been added to the fifth edition. Asylum seeker, economic migrant, bed-blocking, and stakeholder pension reflect the serious side of life; bunny-hugger (a conservationist or animal lover), chick flick (a film appealing to women), gearhead (a car enthusiast), and Grinch (a spoilsport or killjoy) are entries in a more light-hearted vein. Several entries are testaments to the popularity of science fiction, among them Tardis from the TV series Doctor Who, Jedi from Star Wars, and Klingon from Star Trek.
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September 26, 2002
Information Security Seminar
15:56 UTC » Computer and Network Risks - Japanese National ID - Joi's Diary - Privacy
Now I'm sitting on a panel sponsored by the government about security. The panel is focused on the security of government networks. I am sitting on the far left and the guy in favor of the national ID is sitting on the far left. I just talked about the importance of privacy and the fact that privacy is different from security. I talked about how privacy is not only a right of citizens, but a necessary element for demcracy. I talked about how the OECD guidelines for privacy were written before the Internet and that we needed to look at the future. I talked about Roger Clarke's distinction between entity and identity and the fact that Privacy Enhancing Technologies can make the same networks much more robust from a privacy perspective and that this was a different way of thinking about architecture than just security...
Chris Goggans (aka Erik Bloodaxe) spoke yesterday. I wish I could have heard him. I heard it was a good talk. He is the one that got me invited to this panel. Pretty funny. One of the most famous hackers from American invites me to a government sponsored panel in Japan...
The mic cables look shielded... I wonder if I can stay connected even when I talked on the mic...
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R&D Venture Project Team Committee Meeting
13:56 UTC » Japanese National ID - Joi's Diary
So here I am sitting in the "Research and Development Venture Project Team" worrying about my Foma card intefering with the microphone again... They call it a team since it probably seems more "venture-like" than a "committee" but it is in fact a government committee. I THINK that this committee was mostly initiated through meetings that I had with the Minister of Education, Science and Technology Koji Omi after I gave a talk at the committee on business, academic and government cooperation. It was a very "high level" committee and I thought that it wasn't practical enough. Minister Omi eventually dissolved the former committee and worked with us to set up a new one. This committee was set up to involve more people actually involved in trying to promote high tech ventures. Minister Omi is one of the smartest and most serious about learning of the senior politicians I know. He actually listens to people like me and acts on what he learns from such meetings. I was able to have some influence over the selection of the committee members and invited David Milstein of Fidelity Ventures and Date-san who is working on university incubation. I think we have a good group.
The committee is a 3rd tier committee which is above a "study group" but below an inquiry committee, so the output from this study group should have some teeth. (The consumer inquiry committee I am on is one tier above, but the police committee on malicious programs I am on is one tier below. This is the minimum level to get air conditioning in the government building. ;-p ) I think it was the most influential committee we could make and still include people like Date-san who are actually doing new stuff.
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Student busted for blogging
09:48 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Privacy
Found this on David Farber's IP
This is crazy, but very typical. Japanese schools have banned home pages of students because of "privacy concerns"... I guess students will be banned from using blogs in order to protect them from themselves... ;-p
LeovilleUse a blog, go to jail?One of the Leoville Town Square regulars, BEACHTechie, aka Sam, is a high school student in Virginia Beach, VA. He recently got busted by the school administration for blogging, of all things. They seem to think blogging from school is a violation of their acceptable use policies. Perhaps it is. Sammy will be blogging from home from now on. But it seems to me that instead of discouraging blogging they should encourage each student to create one. After all, most writing classes encourage their students to keep journals, and that's exactly what a blog is.
I've posted a message of support in Sam's blog, http://www.sammydman.com. I hope the school reads it.
Ignorance breeds fear. This is why I consider it so important to educate everyone on the value of computers and the Internet. I hope his school's administrators take the time to learn about blogging. I think they'll see that it's no threat.
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September 25, 2002
Save Amina From Death by Stoning
I'm sure most of you have seen this, but here is an easy way to sign a petition or take more action to help save Anima Lawal.
Amnesty International [UK] Merton Group
Amina Lawal - Another woman facing death by stoningBack in October 2001, 35-year old Safiya Hussaini was condemned to death, by stoning, for allegedly committing adultery. International outcry led by Amnesty International ( the Merton Amnesty Group campaigned for Safiya - see campaign archive) helped save her life; she was acquitted on technical grounds by an appeal court.
Now 30-year old Amina Lawal (right)faces the same death sentence. Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning by a Regional Court in Katsina State, Nigeria for having a child outside marriage. Her sentence was announced on 23 March 2002, three days before the day of Safiya's acquittal.
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Censorware funded by the Japanese Government
05:10 UTC » Activism - Computer and Network Risks - Japanese Policy - Privacy
Sakiyama-san is a co-founder of the Japan chapter of CPSR and one of the few privacy activists in Japan. He mentioned this issue at the last CPSR meeting, and I've been meaning to look into it. The perp of this whole thing, the Electronic Network Consortium, merged with the Internet Association of Japan (IAJ). I WAS a Councilor of the Internet Association Japan and was on their web page the when I check at the CPSR meeting, but I just checked and noticed that I am no longer on their web page. Hmm... I was going to threaten to quit if they didn't do something about this, but maybe I have already been fired. (or maybe I quit and didn't know it) In that case, threatening to quit is a pretty idle threat. ;-)
In any case, I will call the IAJ and let them know that I think this censorware project is a BAD IDEA and the way that they have been dealing with the criticism is also pretty poor.
Nobuo Sakiyama
Censorware funded by the Japanese GovernmentRecently, censorware - content filtering software becomes widely used in Japan, particularly on schools, offices, and public libraries. There are already many criticisms against censorware, so I don't repeat the same discussion.
Here in Japan, several commercial censorware products developed in the U.S. are localized and used, but in this article, I focus on a censorware product funded by the Japanese Government. That censorware is developed by an auxiliary organization of the Government and funded by the Government, and its rating database is operated by another industry-based organization which represents Internet Industry in Japan, and the operation business is fully funded by the Government. The feature of the censorware lacks transparency, and the operating organization plainly ignores the accountability. In this August, I released a tool which decrypts the rating labels in the censorware right after the release of the new version of the censorware, because its license did not prohibit reverse-engineering. Now a minor-upgraded version of the censorware was released. That is not compatible with the previous version, and the new license prohibits not only reverse-engineering but also any criticism against the product.
The government-funded censorware project does prohibit criticism by users of the product! So I decided to write a whole story in my poor English.
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Nigerian Money Laundry Scam Parodies
I found a new form of parody of 419 Fraud letters ("Nigerian Money Laundry Scam") on BoingBoing. Here are excerpts from two. (Click the links to see the entire documents.) The first one is Dick Cheney and the second one is Mrs. GW Bush.
To: Abba_Abacha@aol.ng
From: dick_cheney@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Please helpDear Sir or Madam,
I am Mr Dick Cheney a special adviser on Petroleum and economic matters to the Head of State of The United States of America. Because of my strategic position in the former Government, and also being a close confidant of the Head of State, I was able to acquire personally, the Sum of $25,000,000,000.00USD (twenty-five billion United States Dollars) presently lodged in some offshore sham bank owned by his brother Neil.
From: laura419@hotmail.com
To: clc@brainslug.org
Subject: REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONATTN: President/CEO
I am the widow of the late President George W. Bush of the United States of America. I am writing you this letter in confidence regarding my current circumstances.
I escaped the United States ahead of death squads with my husband and two children Jenna and Frank, moving first to England and then, when my husband's political enemies took power there, to Austria. All of our wealth, obtained legitimately through baseball, oil drilling and insider trading, was seized by the new government of the USA under the despotic regime of (Dr.) Noam Chomsky, except for the contents of a few Swiss bank accounts. These bank accounts, which contain social security lock-box funds and the bulk of the 2001 budget surplus, could not be accessed by me or my children, due to agreements made between the socialist government of the USA and Swiss bank regulators. They seized our ranch in Crawford, Texas and now use it to teach homosexualist propaganda to schoolchildren.
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September 23, 2002
GLT Summit Expo Bazaar Booth - Blueprint for Tomorrow's Japan
19:40 UTC » Photo - Reforming Japanese Democracy
Oki Matsumoto and I, with the help of Ichikawa-san of Keio University prepared a bunch of slides about what was wrong with Japan. Since I was bouncing around Europe having fun, I made Oki bring the printed slides to Geneva. Thanks Oki! We stuck the slides up on panels to make a booth for the Expo Bazaar during the GLT summit. We made 5-10 minute presentations to GLT's as the passed through the both and got feedback from them. I will post the presentation slides later, but the jist of our presentation was...
Japan was in trouble and needed reform, but because of the cost to the global economy of executing these reforms, it was very difficult. Also, the problems in Japan are rather well hidden and complex we tried to explain these issues. We focused on three points. Democracy, Diversity and Markets. Japan does not have any of these working well.
Diversity was necessary for markets and democracy and diversity included changing the educational system to allow a variety of respectable career paths including risk taking paths. The media needed to be more open and free to allow diversity of opinion.
Democracy required a more fair election system. It required a judiciary to help check the legislature.
Markets were important to reallocate resources. We needed a strong organization like the SEC to enforce rules in the markets. We needed corporate governance to create financial transparency.
We needed a lot of things. Yu Serizawa took notes of the session and I typed them up in random order. We will organized these notes and output them more formally after discussion with the rest of the Blueprint for Japan 2020 team in Tokyo, but for your reference, I will post the notes here as is.
Here is the powerpoint presentation of the slides for our booth.Continue reading "GLT Summit Expo Bazaar Booth - Blueprint for Tomorrow's Japan"
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Global Leaders for Tomorrow Summit 2002
18:43 UTC » Joi's Diary - Photo
Just finished an intense weekend in Geneva at the Global Leaders for Tomorrow Summit 2002. This was one of the best conferences I've ever attended. The Global Leaders of Tomorrow is a group of 100 or so people under the age of 37 that are chosen by the World Economic Forum every year. Then for 3 years or so, these leaders attend an annual meeting in September in Geneva and a meeting at Davos during the WEF Annual Meeting. By the time you "graduate" you end up with quite an interesting network of friends. The group is very diverse. There are probably around 40% women and 40% non-business people. Geographically, members are from everywhere. Afghanistan, Africa, Arab countries, Europe, Asia, Australia, etc. We have some rather important government officials as well as successful business people. It really shows how young people are able to rise much more quickly in other countries than in Japan. This year, the only two members from Japan were me and Oki Matsumoto. I think there are more Turkish women who are members than Japanese... This is the first year I attended the summit. The meeting at the Davos annual meeting was less focused because the WEF Annual meeting was going on at the same time. Since this summit is just for the GLT's it was much friendlier and more focused.
Also, the meeting took place in the headquarters of the World Economic Forum. The location was beautiful. It is situated on the lake across from the WTO and the UN. The building was a very nice design. According to the staff, the cost of the office is still less than the average office cost in Geneva.
This year, Oki and I were in charge of setting up a booth called "Blueprint for Tomorrow's Japan Task Force" and I was the Rapporteur for the brainstorming session called "Rebuilding Modern Politics: Can the System Fix Itself?". I originally thought that the rapporteur was the facilitator. I thought that rapping was like... you know. rapping... Anyway, I found out later that the Rapporteur was supposed to listen, take notes and write a report! I quit college because I hated taking notes and writing reports...
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Rebuilding Modern Politics: Can the System Fix Itself?
18:41 UTC » Global Politics - Japanese Policy - Photo
As the rapporteur of this session, I was supposed to take notes on a brainstorming session facilitated by Ted Halstead, President and CEO of the New American Foundation, a think tank, and Philippa K. Malmgren, Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, National Economic Council, USA. There were about 11 other participants. The description of the topic was:
Public interest continues to wane in almost every industrialized democratic country. What needs to change in terms of political priorities, accountability, ideology, organization and leadership in most democracies? Will the next generation of leaders be able to reverse the trend from within existing political frameworks?
The discussion went all over the place with a variety of plans like creating an international organization to consult to new democracies and a variety of ways to wake up the voters and chase away the bad politicians. With the help of everyone, I tried to boil the discussion down into some concrete issues and things that we might be able to do to address these issues.
Here is a draft version of my report that I submitted to the World Economic Forum. I think and edited version of this will end up in the briefing package for the participants of the forum next year.
Continue reading "Rebuilding Modern Politics: Can the System Fix Itself?"
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September 22, 2002
Smartmobs Weblog Open!
15:50 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Cool Web Sites
Howard just opened him weblog about Smartmobs. Cool!
SmartmobsA Website and Weblog about Topics and Issues discussed in the book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard RheingoldSmart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive.
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September 20, 2002
Memories of General Magic
08:19 UTC » Consumer Electronics - Gadgets - Software
found this in Marc Canter's Blog
Memories of General Magic
A long time ago I offered to develop for a hot startup called General Magic. I was going to do the work for free. I wanted to explore a new platform. They turned me down, saying they already had enough developers. Yesterday they announced they are shutting down the company. Now no one knows if one developer's software would have made the difference, but it's been known for a long time that exclusive platforms die and inclusive ones have a chance. It's why the Mac worked and Lisa didn't. If you're lucky enough to get a gazillion dollars invested behind your ideas, never say no to a developer. They might have the next VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, PageMaker or Mosaic.
I myself (I was still kind of famous then) was sent to talk to Steve Perlman - who has gone on to prove that he's quite a case unto himself - about Telescript 2.0 and the future of multimedia and General Magic. Basically Steve would have nothing to do with me. He wouldn't even answer my phone calls. Oh well.
I remember when Megan Smith who was working at General Magic took me to see Marc Porat. I was really excited about General Magic and tried to find some way to work with them since they had some licensees in Japan, and I had actually given a high level presentation to NTT about General Magic before their deal with them... Marc seemed very uninterested in seeing me and told me he didn't need any help.
There were so many people who were excited about General Magic and there were really a lot of cool people working there. It's really too bad they weren't more open technically and socially.
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Product Placement on The Sims!
first sighted on BoingBoing posted by Cory
Reuters on MSNBC
Happy Meals, Pentiums coming to video game worldDetailed terms of EA’s multimillion-dollar deal were not available but it will allow Intel’s familiar jingle, its product logo, and computers using its Pentium 4 processor to appear in the game.
Players in the game also will be able to buy a McDonald’s kiosk and sell the company’s branded food products, earning ”simoleans,” the game’s currency. Eating that food will also improve their standing within the game.
I remember when I was on the Sega "dream team" to think about how to set up the network for the Dreamcast, (I guess that was a bad dream...) I was pushing very hard to get product placement inside of the games. We tested things like sending objects such as a Christmas tree into Sonic the Hedgehog. Everyone always comes up with the idea of product placement in games in the desire to get advertising revenues, but this Sims Online deal seems to have been executed elegantly and it sounds just great. Hats off to the EA team for this. The integration into the game sounds cool too.
Product placement in movies has been going on for a long time and movies like Wayne's World did a great job of making fun of it...
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September 19, 2002
Our Host Martin
04:50 UTC » Joi's Diary - Photo
Martin is a fellow World Economic Forum Global Leaders For Tomorrow member, but I didn't talk to talk to him face to face first. We hit up an email conversation after he made some interesting comments on my speech for the Trilarteral Commission. Martin is a serial entprepreneur who is more excited about starting new companies than running them after they are set up. He is on his 4th successful company. I guess you could call PSINet Japan, Digital Garage, Infoseek Japan and now Neoteny 3 successes and working on the next one for me too. We talked about how similar we were. When I realized that he a billionaire at one time and now a multi-hundred millionaire, I decided we weren't THAT similar. ;-p He also spends more time on public service (he is the only foreign board member of the Clinton Foundation among other things...) and spends a lot more time flying and sailing around having fun than me, but has managed to be much more successful than me. Go figure. We discussed hard work. He said that he knows many people who work hard and make a lot of money, but he doesn't work THAT hard, but has managed to make a lot of money. If I could choose, I would choose his style.
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Markoff on the Nakamura/Nichia suit and a quote from me
04:11 UTC » Japanese Policy - Technology Controversy
John Markoff quoted me in his New York Times article (thanks John!) on the lawsuit between Shuji Nakamura and the company he was working for when he did the research on and filed the patents for the blue LED. This is a landmark suit for Japan and should have some interesting reprecussions in the relationship between Japanese corporations and its researchers.
The New York TimesA Rebel in Japan Is Hailed as an Innovator in U.S. By JOHN MARKOFFSAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 — Ordered to stop the scientific research he thought extremely promising, Shuji Nakamura hid the work from his superiors at a Japanese chemical company. He secretly obtained patents in the company's name.
Dr. Nakamura's mission paid off: his inventions revolutionized the world of consumer electronics. One helped make possible an array of products, from flat-panel computer screens to video billboards to long-lasting, efficient flashlights. Another will make it possible to store 5 to 10 movies on a single DVD-like disk.
Dr. Nakamura has been celebrated in the United States as an innovative pioneer. But in Japan he is more controversial. After it was clear his inventions would make a lot of money, his bosses took them to market without additional compensation for him. So Dr. Nakamura sued the company, claiming that the patents were a result of his efforts and he should receive royalties.
Joi's quote in the NYT
"This will teach researchers and companies alike to negotiate and make explicit rights and compensation in advance," said Joichi Ito, president and chief executive of Neoteny Company, a Japanese investment firm. "This is great because it will help force technical people to think about business and companies to think about incentives."
Generally researchers in Japan think that business (some call it the "money game") is dirty and I think the thought of suing a company or fighting for compensation is a bit beneath some researchers... Many researchers feel that the lack of compensation is a tradeoff for getting to do what they want without having to worry about business. This is changing. Companies are pushing researchers to think about returns and many there is general support to spin ventures out of universities and corporate research labs. The rights and the compensation are very unclear at this point and this case should push the debate forward...
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September 17, 2002
Menorcan Physics
23:14 UTC » Introspective - Joi's Diary - Photo
The weather is very interesting here. It is SO hot in the sun today, but SO cool in the shade. There is a nice breeze, it is dry and the sky is blue.
There is also a lot of TIME today. (On the old English language MacOS, when you rolled over the QuickTime icon in the control panels folder, the balloon help would say something like, "Time: a dimension which moves constantly from the past to the future." or something like that.) When you have a lot of time and a lot of sun, it is amazing how interesting and fun it is to do laundry and dry it in the sun.
I wonder if it is the combination of the heat and the time, but the caterpillars move REALLY fast here. Caterpillars are the only thing in the world I am really afraid of. The white cat (the one sitting in the shade in the picture) is playing with a big fat caterpillar and has lots of green caterpillar puss on its face and is now walking towards me. Ack!
Menorcan physics and Menorcan psychology. I am confronted with a combination of some of the most pleasant sensations as well as confronted with some of my most horrid childhood (caterpillars) and adulthood (connectivity deprivation) fears.
(The cat is licking the puss off of its paws and face.)
Earlier, I was talking on my "handy phone" (They call cell phones "handy phones" in Europe. They used to call them that in Japan, but recently they refer to them by their Japanese name keitai denwa.) on the roof of one of the buildings staring over the rolling hills under the blazing sun talking to Jun who is in Tokyo. We were talking about an investment opportunity. We were doing business. I wonder if there is a way to spend more time sitting on roofs under the sun in the breeze instead of sitting in muggy offices with neckties on.
I am wondering about a lot of things sitting here in Menorca. I wonder if it is like a dream and I will forget it all or it will be irrelevant when I return to Japan. I wonder if blogging it will help me remember like the people with Alzheimer's who blog.
Mizuka just swatted a pair of mating flies and they are now sitting on the floor nearly-dead, locked in a deadly love position. The ants quickly surround the half-dead lovers and begin to drag them away...
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Setting up GPRS on Menorca
15:41 UTC » Gadgets - Wireless and Mobile
I'm going to write about setting up GPRS in Menorca because:
1) The line is so slow I can't read other people's blogs or my mail easily for new things.
2) I have nothing else to write about really...
3) This MAY come in handy for someone who is struggling like me.
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Menorca
I've uploaded some photos of Menorca. I put them on photos.yahoo.com because their multi-photo upload feature is GREAT when you have a flakey, slow line.
So I'm standing in on the bed sticking my head out of the North facing window with my Vaio sitting on the window. This sort of works. I wonder what I am doing though. I feel like an alchoholic trying desperately to get drunk off of a wimpy drink through a straw or something. This narrowband experience must be some kind of punishment for having such a heavy index page on my blog. Or maybe it is to prove to me how addicted I am to connectivity... Anyway...
Menorca is beautiful and amazing. It is a little island in the Mediterranean and is part of Spain. Martin has a huge farm with several houses on it. He is letting us stay in one of the houses that was recently restored. The room I am in was originally built in 1770. It is all stone with whitewashed walls. The house is amazingly cool while it is sunny and warm outside. On the farm are sheep, cats, mules and horses. Manolo, who doesn't speak English is showing us everything. It is quite an experience getting the history of Menorca by scribbling stuff in the dirt with a stick and waving our arms. He is working on the restoration. He knows everything about the land and brings us everything from cactus fruit to fresh shrimp. I cooked spaghetti and sautéed the shrimp last night. Mmmm... The restaurants on in the harbors have great seafood as well.
Everything is slow and I'm getting a chance to sleep 10 hours a day. I just discovered that with everything moving so slowly and with a good night's sleep, the book on the history of Japanese politics that I can never concentrate on is suddenly easy to read and exciting. I've also found myself reading faster than I usually do. Or maybe it just feels faster.
Anyway, this is the first long vacation away from civilization... since... ever.
Actually, this is pretty civilized. I guess it just feels pretty "natural" since I've never stayed on a farm before.
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September 13, 2002
Make way for Flash
15:10 UTC » Art - Cool Web Sites - Technology Controversy
I was interviewed yesterday by NHK to talk about the Net category winners and the jury process this year. I talked about how in the early days, we approached the category from a media theory perspective. Derrick deKerkhove and Mitsuhiro Takemura were both on the first jury and they are both very media theory oriented. The jury, over the last seven years has swung around a bit, but we had always tried to look beyond the interface to find the "webness" or the community beyond. We always used to look at flashFlash animation sites as superficial and thin.
At this year's jury meeting, I said something about flashFlash being superficial, Joshua got really mad and argued that flash could do everything Java could do but better. He said that flash talked xml and could be used to do just about everything. He said that it got a bad rap because people thought it was a design tool developed by Macromedia. He said that he hated "old school" guys like me that kept the Net from moving on and getting to the next level. I have to admit, I underestimated flash, but Joshua's religious ferver was also pretty interesting. Joshua won last year with his site, Praystation, which is an amazing flashFlash site that makes flashFlash examples available and has lots and lots of great examples of how to make flashFlash do cool things.
Later, at the ORF studios, I saw Joshua "the first guy to ever call Joi Ito 'old school'" Davis. He was nice and acted almost like he felt sorry about being mean to me. Maybe it's because he's coming to Tokyo next month. ;-p Anyway, I like Joshua and he really opened my eyes to flash so now I'm anxious to learn flash. I told him that I was having difficulty figuring out how to get started with flash and that I wanted to have someone help me build a flash interface to blogs. He said he would help. Cool.
So, to get back to the NHK interview. I told them that we are now seeing artists drawn into the expressive flexibility of flashFlash, finding that they can dig into content using xml and other tools and that there is a meeting of the political, "old school" Internet and design people causing greats sites like They Rule and projects like Carnivore to be born.
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Global Conflicts - Local Networks
13:35 UTC » Global Politics - Photo
Ars Electronica 2002 Program
Plug-In VII: Global Conflicts - Local Networks
Rüdiger Wischenbart / A, Joichi Ito / J, Alex Galloway / USA, Derrick de Kerckhove / CDN, Lori Wallach / USA
Brucknerhaus, 12.9.02, 10:30 - 13:30The Internet utopias have evaporated into the reality of our society. Nevertheless, there is evidence of the political power that actively network-linked communities can bring to bear ... not perfect, but a good start.
Suhair Mohamed Khair Al-Zahabi/Qatar. Journalist, Al-Jazeera.
Lori Wallach/USA. Director of Public Citizens’s Global Trade Watch.
Joichi Ito/J.
Alex Galloway/USA. Member of Rhizome.org.
Rüdiger Wischenbart/A/D. Journalist and consultant.
Interesting panel. I was going to talk mostly about privacy, identity and community, but I ended up spending most of my time talking about my blog. I forgot to say a few things I was meaning to say, but we only had 30 minutes for the initial presentation so I had to fit a lot in...
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Some Photos from Linz
I've put some photos from Linz on Yahoo Photos. In wonder if this is the best photo site. Branding works. The first place I went to look for a photo album online was photos.yahoo.com and there it was. Right now I am using an OSX server and we can't seem to get perl module installed to let me do thumbnails in Movable Type. Also, doing titles and captions was a pain so I wanted to try an album site. On the other hand the photo titles and the layout in Yahoo Photos seems to suck as well. Maybe I haven't figure it out properly... Anyway, here are the photos:
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Sick off the Music Industry
12:16 UTC » Activism - Art - Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy
Dan GillmorMusic Industry's Death WishDan Bricklin has looked closely at the numbers in the music industry, and suggests that the record companies are killing themselves by stamping out music downloads. He makes a compelling case in this essay.
His bottom line: "Given the slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal customers. Perhaps the real reason for some of the drop in sales was the shutdown of Napster and other crackdowns by the music industry."
I don't expect the music companies to pay attention to inconvenient facts. That would be out of character.
Interesting perspective. I am feeling very sick of the music industry. They can keep Britney Spears and their lawyers. I actually have really cut back on buying CD's generally. When I see a CD, I see don't an artist selling music, I see an enslaved artist boxed up in a the shrinkwrap of a industry trying to protect itself by choking the customers and the artists that it is meant to be serving.
No, now I get my musical kicks from open air concerts, ring tones in on my cell phone and cool flash sites like Joe Sparks and his Radiskull and Devil Doll.
Do I need the record industry to enjoy music? Hell no.
One interesting thing to note is that the karaoke industry used midi files to play back music on synthesizers inside of karaoke machines. This lead to a huge industry of midi files. They decided to do a flat fee payment system to simply the billing for the little bars that played the music. Then, when ring tones became popular for cell phones, they used the same flat fee model to license the music. THAT is why ring tones are a huge money making business in Japan. Simple billing, cheap billing and no record companies.
(Apologies to my record company exec friends and to my friends who sell CD's... but you guys suck these days.)
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Connectivity Blues
So I'm in my hotel room using an analog dialup connection to an Austrian Earthlink POP that is flakey. I've got a Sony-Ericsson phone that isn't doing gprs properly and I've got a Siemens phone that whose gprs is working, but I don't have the right cable. My VPN client isn't working so I can't read my email... I have connectivity blues... I've taken a lot of pictures and have a lot of blog material, but with the tiny screen on my Sony C1MRX and this tiny pipe... blogging is a totally different experience. Anyway, these are all excuses for why I haven't written much the last few days. Anyway, it's been hectic. So IF I can get gprs working in Menorca, I should have a whole week of relaxing island peace where I can blog to my heart's content and catch up a bit. If I don't, I'll be on the beach trying to forget about my blog... Eve is supposed to be arranging a gprs phone that works in Menorca, so I'm crossing my fingers.
Sorry for this boring blog entry. It is my obligatory, "I'm still alive" entry.
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September 11, 2002
Decentralization, Community and Reputation
07:14 UTC » Emergent Democracy - Technology Controversy
In case you missed this in my Toshio Yamagishi entry...
There is an interesting discussion going on in a Yahoo Group called Decentraliation. Rich Persaud made an interesting comment. I responded. People asked me to post Toshio Yamagishi's paper so I got permission and here it is.
Toshio Yamagishi
Dear Joi,
I have sent the paper out for review--it will take some time for the
paper to get published. Yes, I'm happy that it is widely distributed.
You may do whatever you want to do with the paper.
Best regards,
Toshio
Improving the Lemons Market with a Reputation System: An Experimental Study of Internet Auctioning by Toshio Yamagishi
I'm sorry if this is redundant, but I wanted to sort out this thread and make sure people saw Toshio Yamagishi's paper which is great.
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September 10, 2002
Travel to Europe
Mizuka and I will be leaving in 8 hours for the airport to go to Europe. We'll be going first to Linz, Austria where I will be giving a talk at the Prix Ars Electronica on Identity and Privacy in a Globalized Community. We'll be staying at the Wolfinger on the main square and I know already they don't have modular phone jacks in the room. So unless I wake up early tomorrow morning, my next blog will probably be from the Ars Electronica Center in Linz.
After Linz, we'll be going to one of Martin's houses on his farm on the Island of Menorca. Here I will challenge a GPRS connection. I'll be on Menorca for a week.
After that, we'll go to Geneva where I will be attending the World Economic Forum Global Leaders for Tomorrow Summit. This year I am co-hosting the Blueprint for Japan 2020 booth with Oki and will be a rapporteur for the "Rebuilding Modern Politics: Can the System Fix Itself?" topic during the brainstorming session.
I won't be back in Tokyo until the 24th. So, if I'm lucky with my connectivity, I'll be blogging some European action... See you in Linz.
--
morning 9/11/2002
I'm leaving in 10 minutes...
Oh, that's right. It's September 11 and I'm flying... I forgot. I wonder if security will be tight? I wonder if I should pack my Cipro that I bought online at http://www.pharmagroup.com/. I remember it was interesting watching the prices go up-up-up day by day after the Antrax incident.
If I die, this will be the last thing I ever write/wrote... That's depressing.
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Larry Wall on God
Found this on BoingBoing.
In an interview on Slashdot, Larry Wall, the legendary inventor of Perl is interviewed and asked about God.
Larry Wall
You can't please God the way Enoch