January 18, 2006
High Tech Elevators, Low Tech Solutions
23:43 UTC » Gadgets - Technology Controversy
Interesting that Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp. will use so-called mag-lev technology in an elevator for the first time.
Mag-lev allows near frictionless movement by suspending objects in midair through a combination of magnetic attraction and repulsion, but the story's kicker is that while the mag-lev elevators will be quieter and more comfortable, Toshiba said conventional elevators can travel more than three times faster.
Meanwhile, Fujitec has announced a system to organize elevator riders in order to stop bottlenecks and speed the flow of people to the correct floor. I have seen such systems in Hong Kong's municipal buildings. They are annoying at first ("Elevator 3 will now go to the 14th, 17th and 18th floor. Take elevator 4 to the 9th, 11th and 14th floor"), but they are efficient.
Regulating passenger flow is pretty low tech compared with suspending elevators on magnets, but that system seems likely to get you to your floor much more quickly. Are there any other notable low-tech solutions for high-tech situations?
(I cross-posted this conversation on the International Herald Tribune blog)
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December 1, 2005
Free Wifi for New Orleans! Can it last?
23:47 UTC » Technology Controversy - Wireless and Mobile
New Orleans mayor just announced free Wifi for the city.
John Dvorak says vested interests are just too great from telecom providers to let it last.
Can free Wifi survive?
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October 10, 2005
Web x.0
10:00 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Games - Network Technology - Open Source Software - Technology Controversy
As the Web 2.0 bandwagon gets bigger and faster, more and more people seem to be blogging about it. I am increasingly confronted by people who ask me what it is. Just like I don't like "blogging" and "blogosphere", I don't like the word. However, I think it's going to end up sticking. I don't like it because it coincides with another bubbly swell in consumer Internet (the "web") and it sounds like "buzz 2.0". I think all of the cool things that are going on right now shouldn't be swept into some name that sounds like a new software version number for a re-written presentation by venture captitalists to their investors from the last bubble.
What's going on right now is about open standards, open source, free culture, small pieces loosely joined, innovation on the edges and all of the good things that WE FORGOT when we got greedy during the last bubble. These good Internet principles are easily corrupted when you bring back "the money". (As a VC, I realize I'm being a bit hypocritical here.) On the other hand, I think/hope Web 2.0 will be a bit better than Web 1.0. Both Tiger and GTalk use Jabber, an open standard, instead of the insanity of MSN Messenger, AOL IM and Yahoo IM using proprietary standards that didn't interoperate. At least Apple and Google are TRYING to look open and good.
I think blogging, web services, content syndication, AJAX, open source, wikis, and all of the cool new things that are going on shouldn't be clumped together into something that sounds like a Microsoft product name. On the other hand, I don't have a better solution. Web 2.0 is probably a pretty good name for a conference and probably an easy way to explain why we're so excited to someone who doesn't really care.
While we're at labeling the web x.0. Philip Torrone jokingly mentioned to me the other day (inside Second Life) that 3D was Web 3.0. I agree. 3D and VR have been around for a long time and there is a lot of great work going on, but I think we're finally getting to the phase where it's integrated with the web and widely used. I think the first step for me was to see World of Warcraft (WoW) with its 4M users and the extensible client. The only machine I have where I can turn on all of the video features is my duel CPU G5. On my powerbook I have to limit my video features and can't concurrently use other applications while playing. Clearly there is a hardware limit which is a good sign since hardware getting faster is a development we can count on.
Second Life (SL) is sort of the next step in development. Instead of trying to control all real-money and real-world relationship with things in the game like Blizzard does with WoW, SL encourages it. SL is less about gaming and more about building and collaboration. However, SL is not open source and is a venture capital backed for-profit company that owns the platform. I love it, but I think there's one more step.
Croquet, which I've been waiting for for a long time appears to be in the final phases of a real release. Croquet, if it takes off should let you build things like SL but in a distributed and open source way. It is basically a 3D collaborative operating system. If it takes off, it should allow us to take our learning from WoW and SL and do to them what "Web 2.0" is doing to traditional consumer Internet services.
However, don't hold your breath. WoW blows away SL in terms of snappy graphics and response time and has a well designed addictive and highly-tuned gaming environment. Croquet is still in development and is still way behind SL in terms of being easy to use. It will take time for the more open platforms to catch up to the closed ones, but I think they're coming.
Web 3.0 is on its way! Actually, lets not call it Web 3.0.
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December 27, 2004
Internet to ITU
18:22 UTC » ICANN - Technology Controversy
Ross Rader writes a passionate response to the ITU "Beyond Internet Governance" paper. This is the struggle/debate that we face today and good for Ross for articulating the position many people have but are either not in a position to say or are not informed enough to say. I would be very interested to hear the ITU's response to Ross.
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December 4, 2004
Former CIA head wants to limit Internet access
18:48 UTC » Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics - Warblogging
UPI via The Washington TimesTenet calls for Internet security
[...]
The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but that openness makes the system vulnerable, Mr. Tenet said.
Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said.
If the Internet were not open, it would no longer be the Internet. it is exactly the "vulnerabilities" that Tenet refers to that allows the Internet to promote free speech, innovation and growth without asking permission, getting licenses or being controlled by governments and monopolies. Shutting down or closing the open Internet in the name of fear and terror would do more damage to global democracy and innovation than any real damage it would have on terrorists. Of course terrorists use the Internet, but so does everyone else. I think people underestimate how much damage certain types of "control" can have on the future of the Internet. Either Tenet was ignorant of the nature of the Internet or it is yet another calculated push towards turning the Internet into another version of the telephone networks or cable TV...
Does Tenet have any influence on policy anymore?
Susan Crawford mentioned this during her remarks at the public forum at ICANN. Are there any other news agencies reporting this story?
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November 21, 2004
Someone sabotaging EFF at WIPO
12:33 UTC » Activism - Technology Controversy
Cory blogs from the WIPO meeting about position papers from IP Justice, EFF, and the Union for the Public Domain being repeatedly stolen and thrown in the trash. Someone is obviously upset about their position on the Broadcast Treaty. Cory quotes Gandhi, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Good luck Cory!
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October 18, 2004
Where did Microsoft Passport go?
13:18 UTC » Privacy - Software - Technology Controversy
Anil points out that Microsoft Passport seems to have withered away silently.
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October 1, 2004
Sony dumps CD DRM
22:20 UTC » Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy
"In a complete reversal of their policy and on the heels of Avex's partial cessation of copy protected CDs (translation), Sony Music Entertainment in Japan has announced that it will abolish its Label Gate CCCD format (translation) beginning in November 2004 and move back to normal CD-audio format discs for all future releases. Reasons cited are music users' increased consciousness about copyrights and maintenance of legality (conformity to the CD-audio format specification). In related news, Sony also released a slightly updated HD walkman (translation) due to pressure from the iPod, but because of hardware limitations the device still does not support MP3 playback."Yay! Sony does something smart in the DRM space for a change.
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August 18, 2004
Electronic voting machine fails in public demo
02:40 UTC » Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
I still think electronic voting is a bad idea. Here is yet another example of a failure.EFF DeeplinksE-Voting Mistake Caught on PaperIn news at once frightening and reassuring, a Sequoia electronic voting machine suffered a very public failure last week during a live demo. The machine worked fine with an English-language ballot, but failed to record votes with the Spanish-language ballot.
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July 30, 2004
BitTorrent of Hearings on the INDUCE Act
07:52 UTC » Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
BitTorrent is one of the most efficient p2p systems and is great for distributing movies and other large files. The Induce act is trying to make illegal basic technologies such as p2p which "could induce" people to break copyright law.Lawrence Lessigno potential for a substantial noninfringing use?Here's a BitTorrent file that will get you, p2p, the video of the Hearings on the INDUCE Act, prepared by Tom Barger. Watch, and blog the substantial noninfringing use.
With more powerful cameras and PCs, video and Flash have become important mediums for free speech. They are increasingly being used for political action. The integration of blogs and p2p technology for sharing these videos like the BitTorrent link above from Lessig are a good example. I believe this is substantial non-infringing use.
BitTorrent is very smart and allows you to download from multiple sources. Thus, the more people downloading/sharing, the faster the download becomes and the less stress it puts on any one person. Anyone who's posted a movie file to a blog knows what this is like. I'm downloading it now with 3 peers. Come on everyone, join in the BitTorrent p2p fun and help me make the download faster! (while it's still legal)
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June 25, 2004
The US constitution with DRM
10:23 UTC » Heckling - Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy
Now who in their right mind would buy a copy of the US constitution in a form that they couldn't freely print? Or maybe they're going to try to get the government to stop distributing for free. ;-pLessigthis is the constitution on DRMSo jump over here to Amazon.com where you can purchase an electronic version of the Constitution, fitted very nicely to a Microsoft Reader (not Mac compatible), and protected quite completely with DRM. The description says you're not permitted to print it. The reader reviews report you're permitted to print it twice a year. And don't try to hack the code to print it more than twice -- until Boucher's H.R. 107 passes at least. (Though the ranking is higher than for my book. Maybe free fails after all?) (Thanks Paul!)
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June 23, 2004
Iran's Net Censorship
02:16 UTC » Human Rights - Media and Journalism - Technology Controversy
I once sat next to a guy from Sun Federal, a Sun Microsystems subsidiary, who was on his way back from selling a filtering system to a government. I think that most of this censorship technology is built in the US. I guess it makes sense, but it's interesting that there is very little discussion about this. (At least as far as I know...)Dan GillmorIran's Net Censorship
Hoder points me to "Stop Censoring Us" -- a site about the increasing level of government intervention in what was emerging as relatively free speech in Iran. I'm not sure what individuals outside Iran can do about this except to offer support to the Iranians who want to speak their minds.
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June 21, 2004
Cory's drm rant wikified
10:05 UTC » Intellectual Property - Movies - Music - Technology Controversy - Wiki
Cory's excellent drm rant which he presented at Microsoft Research has now been wikified to allow people to comment and add to it. Excellent.
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June 16, 2004
EFF and Stanford Law School to the rescue against DirecTV
04:03 UTC » Activism - Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy
These are the kinds of stories that make me sometimes wish I lived in America. Good job EFF and Stanford Law School.Dan GillmorDirecTV Reins in the Legal Attack DogsIn one of the uglier "intellectual property" abuses, DirecTV has been suing people for possession of tools it claims can be used to get TV shows without paying for them. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society have challenged the satellite TV company on this conduct, and on Monday DirecTV agreed to modify its approach, according to this press release, which says in part:
The company will no longer pursue people solely for purchasing smart card readers, writers, general-purpose programmers, and general-purpose emulators. It will maintain this policy into the forseeable future and file lawsuits only against people it suspects of actually pirating its satellite signal. DirecTV will, however, continue to investigate purchasers of devices that are often primarily designed for satellite signal interception, nicknamed “bootloaders” and “unloopers.”Perhaps DirecTV saw some writing on the wall. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court has ruled that the company can't sue solely because someone possesses such equipment.DirecTV also agreed to change its pre-lawsuit demand letters to explain in detail how innocent recipients can get DirecTV to drop their cases. The company also promised that it will investigate every substantive claim of innocence it receives. If purchasers provide sufficient evidence demonstrating that they did not use their devices for signal theft, DirecTV will dismiss their cases. EFF and CIS will monitor reports of this process to confirm that innocent device purchasers are having their cases dismissed.
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June 4, 2004
Microsoft patent on double-clicking?
18:23 UTC » Software - Technology Controversy
This is why I don't like software patents.AKMAIncredible - Perhaps Not TrueSomebody tell me that the Patent office hasn't actually granted Microsoft's application for a patent on double-clicking.
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May 5, 2004
Michael Powell on censorship and VOIP
22:48 UTC » Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
via Kevin WerbachThe RegisterFCC chairman hails VoIPMichael PowellIf you're a big incumbent and you've sort of enjoyed a competitive advantage . . . you, in my opinion, ought to be terrified.[...]
I think it's going to be the very, very best and biggest breakthrough in our ambitions and dreams about competition ever.
Exactly.
via Jeff JarvisReutersOxygen Media Inc. CEO and founder Geraldine Laybourne criticized the FCC's enforcement effort during the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn.'s (NCTA) annual trade show."I don't think we should use the word indecency; we should call it what it is: censorship," Laybourne said Tuesday during one of the show's panel discussions.
Laybourne's comments came after a Q&A session with FCC chairman Michael Powell and NCTA chief Robert Sachs.
"I don't agree with that," Powell told reporters after his dialogue. "For 70 years, the country has had limits on broadcast television. To me censorship is prior restraint, and I don't think anybody has been involved in that limitation on content."
Umm... I don't think so.
I guess 1 out of 2 isn't bad.
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April 30, 2004
Interview in The Tech with Jack Valenti
17:45 UTC » Creative Commons - Intellectual Property - Music - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
There's a short interview in MIT's The Tech newpaper with Jack Valenti about DMCA. I'm glad that Jack is still willing to have discussions like this. This is what I meant when I said that I think Jack should be respected. Even if you don't agree with him, he's still willing to try to discuss his position with you.
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April 24, 2004
E-Voting Machines Get Official Thumbs Down
19:51 UTC » Emergent Democracy - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
Yes! We really need to get rid of e-voting. It's such a bad idea and until now, I thought we were losing the battle. We need to make sure this doesn't end with just Diebold.Mercury NewsE-voting panel wants to dump troubled systemSACRAMENTO - Less than seven months before the presidential election, an advisory panel Thursday unanimously recommended an unprecedented ban of touch-screen election equipment used in four California counties.
The panel also urged Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to seek a criminal or civil investigation into the conduct of Diebold Election Systems, the Ohio-based firm that manufactured the troubled voting system.
via Dan Gillmor
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Essay about trends
17:41 UTC » Creative Commons - Intellectual Property - Network Technology - Technology Controversy - Wireless and Mobile
Here are some thoughts on where I think things are going in the mobile and content space.
I wrote this essay before reading Free Culture so I'm saying a lot of stuff that Larry says better...
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March 15, 2004
California attorney general preparing to slam P2P
23:36 UTC » Intellectual Property - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
Wired News just ran an article by Xeni exposing a draft letter circulated by Bill Lockyer, California attorney general slamming P2P. The metadata on the Word document shows that it has been edited/reviewed by the Motion Picture Association of America. Another example of Hollywood using the US government to push its agenda to blame and limit technology which it views as a threat.
It is me, or is this pretty "smoking gun"?
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February 18, 2004
Anonymity on the Internet
03:45 UTC » Privacy - Technology Controversy
Seth says he wants to banish anonymous communications.
I disagree. Although most vicious attacks I have received have been anonymous, I still believe there is a role for anonymity and that the value outweighs the cost.Seth GodinVirus writers are always anonymous.Vicious political lies (with faked photoshop photos of political leaders, or false innuendo about personal lives) are always anonymous as well.
Spam is anonymous.
eBay fraudsters are anonymous too.
It seems as though virtually all of the problems of the Net stem from this one flaw, and its one I’ve riffed on before. If we can eliminate anonymity online, we create a far more civil place.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science has a project on anonymous communication on the Internet. They list a few of cases where we might need anonymous communication on the Internet.
Remember that the Internet is one of the few tools for a variety of people who are at risk including whistle-blowers and human rights workers. It is very difficult or impossible to "fix" the Internet without breaking it for others.AAASCase 1 - The Crimesolvers Website
Case 2 - Chatting Online About Addiction
Case 3 - The Case(s) of the Hot News Tips
Case 4 - An Anonymous Computer Hotline: Is it Worth the Costs?
Case 5 - Terror in Elb!
Case 6 - Good Communication Gone Bad
Case 7 - His Word Against Whose?
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February 1, 2004
Identity and justice
23:02 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Emergent Democracy - Media and Journalism - Privacy - Technology Controversy
As a former student, I sure wish I had had RateMyTeachers.com (via Seb) when I was in school. I would have had a lot to say and I would have felt justified. Maybe I wouldn't have had to start our underground newspaper. On the other hand, I can see how this might be abused. There are some thoughtful comments from many people about the "Adopt A Reporter" idea over on PressThink. This is not a new issue, but an old issue that continues to accelerate. As Loic points out, blogging helps you manage your own identity instead of leaving it up to others. Having said that, any notion that you can "control" your identity is a myth.
Over at Chanpon, someone blogged about a teacher from my high school who passed away. Some students posted some allegations in the comments. Obviously, since the teacher was dead, he couldn't defend himself. On the other hand, the students obviously felt justified and there are very few opportunities for students to speak up about their teachers. We ended up removing the entry and the comments. It was a very difficult decision, but we did what we thought was right. Blogs and other forms of publishing come with a great deal of responsibility and it is very difficult to judge what is right and wrong. That is why we need to think about justice and how we can make the institution of blogs and the Internet just. The technology influences what we can do and how people use it. Having said that, just as with politicians, we get what we deserve. Unless we have a strong sense of justice and speak up, we'll end up with bad technologies in the same way we end up with bad politicians.
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January 17, 2004
Cato gets it wrong in their analysis of Dean Net policy
06:29 UTC » Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
David Weinberger describes how the Cato Institute's analysis of the Dean Net policy is wrong.
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January 6, 2004
Are blogs just?
22:04 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - Emergent Democracy - Gender - Social Software - Technology Controversy
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You remind me of those people who said they'd never get cell phones
21:11 UTC » Identity - Privacy - Social Software - Technology Controversy - Wireless and Mobile
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January 3, 2004
Judgmental technology
13:45 UTC » Activism - Identity - Privacy - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
It's kind of funny when Basil's TiVo thinks he's gay and Kevin's Outlook thinks Scoble's writing is junk, but it won't be funny when CAPPS II thinks you're a terrorist.
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CSS in RSS removed
07:10 UTC » Blogging about Blogging - LOAF - Technology Controversy
I've removed the CSS Stylesheets in my RSS feed until further notice. I'll let the discussions play out and will wait for the tool builders to decide what is best before I start pushing on this.
Thanks for all of the interesting feedback everyone.
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November 17, 2003
SurfControl protects you from viewing this site
10:33 UTC » Network Technology - Technology Controversy
Dan Gillmor writes about how censorware blocks his site. It's blocking mine too.
Dan GillmorSimon Phipps alerts me that one of the big censorware outfits, SurfControl, is blocking this and other blogs as a default setting for some customers. He points to Jon Udell's report of a surrealistic conversation with a company salesdroid upon his own such discovery. Good grief.SurfControl puts all blogs under Usenet, a fairly bizarre characterization of the genre, but par for the course for the censorware mavens. They tend to sweep big categories into their filter, and then let you try to find your own way to escape.
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November 10, 2003
Speaking of false positives
07:55 UTC » Network Technology - Technology Controversy
Speaking of false positives, I'm also against blacklists because they can also cause false positives that are difficult to correct. Smartmobs was blacklisted by Verio and it took Roland two months of hell to get it sorted out.
I know I use a blacklist for my comment filtering. It's a stop-gap measure until someone figures out a better solution.
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October 26, 2003
Weird dream about standards
07:46 UTC » Introspective - LOAF - Technology Controversy
I had a weird dream last night. I had a dream that I was spinning records and I had a little chart. On one axis was the record label and on the other was the record player. When ever I played a record, I had to check the label and cross it with the record player to know what the right speed setting for the record was. In real life, I remember being annoyed when records didn't have 45 rpm or 33 rpm on their labels when I was a DJ.
Anyway, a few observations. I'm totally losing it because I remember thinking in the dream, "oh, I should blog this..." Which, I think, is a bad sign. This dream was probably partially triggered by my discussion with James Seng yesterday about identifier standards (which I will blog about later when I understand exactly what we talked about) and partially triggered by thoughts about CSS incompatibilities when trying to redesign my blog. (Which luckily Boris is handling for me right now.) The little chart I had in the dream reminded me of the CSS/browser support charts in the O'Reilly CSS Pocket Reference.
Anyway, isn't it great when we have standards that work and really ugly when we have bad standards or no standards at all? I'm not trying to take a political stand here, just observing and paying homage the the necessity of good standards.
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October 24, 2003
Verisign's Doomsday Machine
15:08 UTC » Network Technology - Technology Controversy
Lauren Weinstein has a great mp3 Fact Squad Radio rant on the Versign Site Finder issue.
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October 23, 2003
Broadcast Flag Bad
11:11 UTC » Consumer Electronics - Intellectual Property - Network Technology - Technology Controversy - US Policy and Politics
Cory and the EFF have been leading the charge to stop the broadcast flag proposal. Lessig chimes in. The broadcast flag is a bad thing which is anti-end-to-end. Fight for the