unmediated

Does Participation = Change?

I think Julian Bleecker's netpublics: participation + change paradigm aptly reflects the transition China is experiencing with how the public participates in politics.

In China, it is estimated 52% of white collar workers have a blog, with already 30million blogs already registered and over 100 blog providers, and this # is expected to grow to 90million in 2008 (1/3 of america's population).

According to this paradigm, web 2.0 allows for mass networked participation and change. The question for China is will participation = change? And how sustainable is this method in light of China's new regime of censorship policies and alliances with Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo and how will it affect the netpublic feedback loops? Will surveillance of the overwhelming # of internet bloggers in China mirror how it currently handle's it's overflowing human population? The next year in China's blogosphere will be interesting to monitor, but one thing is for sure, there's never enough political fires to put out and voices to squash in the real world and digital world - it's all the same now.

Ambient Information Visualization thesis

If you’re into information visualization, the Licentiate thesis of Tobias Skog (Future Applications Lab, Göteborg) is very appealing. It’s called “Ambient Information Visualization” (1.7Mb pdf here) and it deals with various issues regarding informative art, everyday displays as well as their utility and evaluations.

This thesis investigates the concept of ambient information visualization. It has its background in the research fields of ubiquitous computing and information visualization (…) The term ambient information visualization distinguishes an area where these two research fields merge, and can be defined as the use of visual representations of digital data to enhance a physical location. These visualizations are typically displayed using flat-panel displays or projectors and ideally act both as information displays and decorative elements in the interiors where they are placed.

is describes a suite of design examples, where the first ones explicitly address the issue of creating a decorative surface by using the styles of famous artists as inspiration for the appearance of the visualizations, creating so-called informative art. Subsequent designs are developed under the superordinate term ambient information visualization and strive to find generic, inherent properties of peripheral information displays and how these properties come to affect design requirements. As a way of informing the design process, visualizations have continually been tested with users in different environments, including exhibition settings with large amounts of visitors as well as long-term studies of use in office settings with smaller user groups.
The knowledge gained from the design and study of these examples is analyzed and the results highlight issues that are of central importance when designing a visualization. These issues are divided into three categories that concern the information source, the mapping from data to visual structures and the use of the
visualization.

Some of the examples, my favorite is certainly the one using the Mondrian compositions as inspiration to show information about e-mail traffic:

AJAX homepages - Portals 2.0?

I've been tracking the development of all the personalized start pages that have flowered up over the past year. Live.com, Google Personalized Homepage, Netvibes, PageFlakes, et al. These are services that don't just offer a place to store all your content and links - but house your widgets, gadgets and web services too. I'll be publishing an analysis of the feature sets of the leading services on ZDNet tonight, but I want to set the scene by discussing their growing popularity - which makes for an obvious comparison to portals in the late 90's.

TechCrunch calls them AJAX homepages, because they all use AJAX in the UI. For that reason there's something uniquely 'Web 2.0' about personalized start pages. But in other ways, they harken back to the dot com era when portals were all the rage (Excite, AltaVista, Lycos, etc). For example, the main aim of the game is still getting traffic.

Looking at the 2006 class of portals/personalized pages, there are two distinct groups:

1) The big guns: Microsoft (live.com), Google (Google Personalized Homepage) and Yahoo (My Yahoo, which is still mostly an old-style portal).

2) The little companies: Netvibes, Protopage, PageFlakes and a host of other contenders which I'll mention in my ZDNet post.

In terms of traffic, it's difficult to gauge how the big guns compare to one another. But amongst the little guys Netvibes has been getting all the buzz and early traffic, as this Alexa chart shows:

To put that into perspective though, it's small potatoes compared to live.com:

Update: A source at Microsoft tells me that the Live.com figure on Alexa may include mail.live.com, which gets a lot of traffic. If that's the case, take the following paragraph with a grain of salt...

I added the top web-based RSS Reader Bloglines into the chart to show just how significant Live.com - and Personalized start pages in general - are becoming. Bloglines smokes every other web-based RSS Reader and has been no slug in traffic growth lately, yet it was overtaken in traffic by Live.com after just 1-2 months. In fact Live.com currently has double the amount of traffic of Bloglines! I would imagine Google isn't too far behind Live.com either.

It goes to show how valuable this type of service could be, in terms of traffic and being a 'start page' for users. More grist for the Portals 2.0 mill, because portals too were all about getting 'eyeballs' and traffic.

Incidentally, I have a question for you: where is Yahoo in all this? My Yahoo is more like a dot com portal than a Personalized start page. Aside from the obvious observation that My Yahoo isn't made of AJAX, it's still basically a portal for mostly static content. Yahoo owns one of the leading widget makers, konfabulator (now known as Yahoo! Widgets), but it's not integrated with My Yahoo. Why haven't they joined the 'AJAX homepages' party yet?

UPDATE: I've now posted an Ajax homepages market review on ZDNet.

Dynix Institute Web Seminar

It looks like the folks at SirsiDynix are making the library blogger rounds these days. There are lots of us doing these institutes. Today, mine went up, as did Alane Wilson's, Greg Schwartz's (no, we don't share the same job), and Meredith Farkas's.

I'm excited for my first real chat about libraries being the center of community building. Here's the abstract:

"Based on parts of previous writings by Kathleen de la Pena McCook (A Librarian at Every Table), Cohen will discuss how social networks, public space theory, and online communities can be used by libraries in any setting (public, academic, and school) to build social capital and become an active part in community building. Learn how other libraries of all sizes and budgets have become active participants in their communities and how a process-based approach can incorporate the above theories into practical methods for community building"

A far cry from my previous talks on RSS, Blogs, etc. How refreshing.

Vast wasteland, my ass

Well so much for those turn-off-the-tv festivals of media snobbery. The New York Times reports that two University of Chicago economists find that TV is not bad for kids.

Most studies that find negative effects from television compare groups of children who watch television to those who do not, even though the economic situations of the two groups are in all likelihood very different, Mr. Gentzkow said. The new study, however, was based on what the authors call a “natural experiment” that resulted from the way television was introduced in the United States in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, when some cities got TV service five years ahead of others.

where preschoolers were exposed to the new technology, and data from cities where they were not, was correlated with test scores from about 300,000 students nationwide in 1965, as collected in the Coleman Report, a survey done under the Civil Rights Act. The study also looked at test scores from pre- and post-TV age groups within cities.

The result showed “very little difference and if anything, a slight positive advantage” in test scores for children who grew up watching TV early on, compared to those who did not, said Mr. Shapiro.

Media are good.

Video/Imaging DesignLine | Video compression artifacts and MPEG noise reduction

Excellent white paper on artifacting in MPEG video.

"MPEG-2 is what we call a lossy codec. It discards image information believed to be of lesser visual importance. The more you want to compress, the further away you get from the look of the original image. Image quality and fidelity now depends on the chosen (or often imposed) level of compression. And since that is directly tied to the available bandwidth, we must ask ourselves when is the video simply too compressed?"

Own Your Del.icio.us Links! | SlashLinks

SlashLinks is a tool developed by Eyebeam R&D for automatically mirroring links from the popular social-bookmarking service del.icio.us to your personal or institutional website. Posting, tagging, and management still occur within the del.icio.us interface, but design and layout can now be fully customized on your mirrored site. The tool also adds blog-like year/month/day archives (similar to Kottke.org's remaindered links) to the typical del.icio.us or flickr style tag browsing.

music animation machine

a display of a musical score without any measures or clefs, in which information about the music's structure is conveyed with bars of color representing the notes. these bars scroll across the screen as the music plays. their position on the screen conveys the pitch & the timing in relation to each other. different colors denote different instruments or voices, thematic material, or tonality, lighting up at the exact moment it sounds. [musanim.com/ & musanim.com/(pdf)]

Can file-swappers be sued as "distributors"?

Denise Barker is one of the few file-swappers sued by the RIAA who has taken her fight to court. Elektra v. Barker is an interesting case for several reasons, including the fact that the RIAA wants to argue that simply making files available (even if they're not actually downloaded) constitutes infringement. The EFF has just weighed in on the case by filing an amicus brief with the court. Rather than address all the issues raised by the case, the brief tries instead to make only a single point: sharing music files does not infringe the "distribution right" granted to copyright holders.

Under US law, copyright owners are the only ones authorized "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending." The EFF argues (PDF) that such "copies or phonorecords" only include physical objects such as cassettes, CDs, or a user's hard drive.

(Continued at Ars Technica)

If your employer or corrupt, undemocratic, dictator-based government uses a filtering service such as Secure Computing's SmartFilter to block access to BoingBoing.net or other enlightened, democratic and liberlly oriented sites, you can try the following workarounds:

Use the TOR network. The more people who run Tor servers, the faster and more anonymous the network becomes.
Using an SSH tunnel, VPN, or anonymous overlay to an unfiltered network is widely considered to be the best way to protect yourself while accessing "prohibited" content. (Thanks, chris)
Use Google as a proxy to access forbidden sites. Link
A group called Peacefire created proxy software called Circumventor to bypass censorware. Install this software on your home computer and allow others to use your proxy to access the web, or use your proxy from work or school to access any web site. (Thanks, Sean!)
Breaking out of a Proxy Jail. Link (Thanks, Mutz!)
Try Daveproxy, and other services listed on the proxy list at samair.ru/proxy together with AntiFirewall (a small app that tests proxies). (Thanks, Joao Barata!)
Try Java Anonymous Proxy. JAP uses the TOR network, and installation is pretty easy for non-nerds. (Thanks, Jonas)
The Bitty browser, while not initially designed as an anonymizing tool, has helped some of our readers work around corporate internet filters. (Thanks, Scott Matthews!)
Some of our readers have found the Coral Content Distribution Network (CCDN) helpful for evading internet blocks. Just add ".nyud.net:8080" at the end of boingboing.net -- for example, instead of typing http://www.boingboing.net to your browser's address line, instead type http://www.boingboing.net.nyud.net:8080. (Thanks, Tian!)
Check out the regularly updated list of public proxy servers at publicproxyservers.com.
For BoingBoing readers in the UAE or Qatar, or other countries where BoingBoing is blocked, one anonymous reader tells us: "There is an internet via satellite called OPENSKY sold through www.broadsat.com which goes around these problems. Using VPN with normal dialup, the signal gets sent back from Europe, so, uncensored. Works really well and is cheap!"
Andy Armstrong says, "I've also set up a proxy for boingboing at boingboing.hexten.net."
Or...

If possible, ask your system administrator to whitelist BoingBoing.net. Sometimes network admins leave all the defaults on when they install enterprise filtering software. If they're using SmartFilter, for example, the admin can selectively allow the BoingBoing.net domain, while keeping the rest of the entries for the "blocked" category in which BoingBoing is listed. Bribing your sysadmin with cartons of Skittles and Red Bull may expedite this option.

BoingBoing banned in UAE, Qatar, elsewhere. Our response to net-censors: Get bent!

Boing Boing to net-censors: Get bent!

We've decided not to rejig our editorial process to make it easier for a censorware company to block us for their customers. Instead, we're creating a clearinghouse of information on how to defeat censorware.

Last week, we reported that Boing Boing was blocked by entire countries including the United Arab Emirates, and by many library systems, schools, US government and military sites, and corporations.

Today, we've learned that Internet Qatar, the sole ISP in the State of Qatar, has also banned BoingBoing.

We've heard from librarians in Africa who want to watch the video of the American Register of Copyrights denouncing Congress, employees at the Australian Broadcasting Company, students, and workers around the world who can't gain access to our work.

At fault is a US-based censorware company called Secure Computing, which makes a web-rating product called SmartFilter. But SmartFilter isn't very smart. Secure Computing classifies any site with any nudity -- even Michaelangelo's David appearing on a single page out of thousands -- as a "nudity" site, which means that customers who block "nudity" can't get through.

Last week, Secure Computing updated their software to classify Boing Boing as a "nudity" site. Last month, we had two posts with nudity in them, out of 692 -- that's 0.29 percent of our posts, but SmartFilter blocks 100 percent of them. This month, there were four posts with nudity (including the Abu Ghraib photos), out of 618 -- 0.32 percent.

In fact, out of the 25,000+ Boing Boing posts classed as "nudity" by SmartFilter, more that 99.5 percent have no nudity at all. They're stories about Hurricane Katrina, kidnapped journalists in Iraq, book reviews, ukelele casemods, phonecam video of Bigfoot sightings (come to think of it, he doesn't wear clothes either), or pictures of astonishing Lego constructions.

Why is SmartFilter content to deliver a product with a 99.5 percent false-positive rate? Because it has promised its customers that it will stop their users from seeing nudity (fat chance -- it's a dead certainty that Smart Filter has failed to class innumerable sites containing nudity), and punishing 24,875 nudity-free posts to get at 125 that contain mild or "art" nudity is fine by them.

Secure Computing told us that their categorization system protects kindergartners from being exposed to porn. We argue that not only are products like SmartFilter incapable of blocking all potentially kid-inappropriate sites, but why treat entire countries, or entire corporate sites full of working adults, as kindergartners?

The question of keeping your child from viewing content you don't want them to see can be addressed more efficiently locally, with tech tools like the browser Bumpercar. As BoingBoing founder (and father of two) Mark Frauenfelder explains, "My daughter and I found a bunch of great kid-friendly sites and have added them to the 'white list.' As a parent, I have local control of the sites she visits instead of handing over control to a remote group of people that I don't trust to do my job of being a parent."

The fact is, there's no effective way to censor the Internet in broad strokes. Only dumb CIOs and totalitarian governments like the UAE believe that adding censorware to your network will prevent the naughty stuff from slopping in. Having a human being review a few pages on a site every couple months is a perfectly adequate classification system, in SmartFilter's lights -- which is convenient, since a genuinely thoroughgoing review would be ruinously expensive.

Secure Computing offered us a devil's bargain: if we'd change the URLs of images with "nudity" (which, they assured us, included photos of Michaelangelo's David) to something they could detect and block, they'd let the rest of the world see us again. That guy in the UAE who was worried he'd be imprisoned for trying to read BoingBoing would be OK again.

We considered their offer, and decided not to do it. What happens when the next censorware company comes along with another editorial process they want us to engage in to help them censor the site?

More importantly: why should we let a company that helps corrupt dictatorships oppress their citizen dictate morality to us?

So instead we've decided to help put Secure Computing out of business. We're doing this in three ways:

• First, we're publishing a guide to evading the SmartFilter censorware. There are hundreds of ways to defeat these censorware apps, and we're going to catalog as many of them as possible.
  Link to "BoingBoing's Guide To Evading Censorware."
• Next, we're compiling a list of SmartFilter's dumb classifications. Send us your misclassified SmartFilter sites so we can add them to the list.
• Finally, we're producing a guide to convincing your employer to ditch SmartFilter. It consists of parts one and two above: a list of bad SmartFilter classifications and a list of ways that SmartFilter can be shredded like wet kleenex. Why spend money on bad technology that doesn't work?

ngBoing team:
- Cory Doctorow
- Mark Frauenfelder
- Xeni Jardin
- David Pescovitz
- John Battelle

Previous BoingBoing posts:
* BoingBoing now censored in the UAE
* Argonne National Laboratory is blocking Boing Boing

Xbox Media Center installed

I finally installed XBox Media Center this weekend and I'm thoroughly geeked. It plays just about anything, and I wasn't expecting the picture quality to be so damn good. I realize I'm a little late to the game, but so be it.

I followed ProductWiki's guide to soft-modding and was able to get through it with minimal teeth gnashing. The main reason I hadn't modded before was the pain it is to figure out which mod chip you have to buy, install it, etc. so this soft mod guide was exactly what I needed.

So now that I've caught up with what the Makers were doing 4 years ago, does anyone have any recommendations for cool add-ons for XBMC?

Case Study: Live Streaming to Flash Player (via FFMPEG)

_Live_Flash_Stream_via_FFMPEG
Drazen writes up the procedure he uses to do live streaming to an embedded SWF.

Site Lists Top Digital Cameras

Now there's a place you can go to find out the top 100 most-frequently-used makes and models of digital cameras used to take pictures uploaded to photo sharing website Flickr. There's also a column that names the top camera manufacturers represented in Flickr uploads.

Here's an exquisite example of data mining, where recent uploads are sampled using some pretty tricky technology. Taking a look at the list right now, it looks like Canon dominates, with seven out of the top 10 cameras used, with the top three manufacturers lining up as Canon, Sony and then Nikon. Take a look at the list here.

anvil, the video annotation tool

Anvil is a free video annotation tool, used at research institutes world-wide (see the Anvil User Web). It offers frame-accurate, hierarchical multi-layered annotation driven by user-defined annotation schemes. The intuitive annotation board shows color-coded elements on multiple tracks in time-alignment. Special features are cross-level links, non-temporal objects and a project tool for managing multiple annotations. Originally developed for Gesture Research, Anvil has also proved suitable for research in Human-Computer Interaction, Linguistics, Ethology, Anthropology, Psychotherapy, Embodied Agents, Computer Animation and many other fields.

Neighborhood Story Project

The Neighborhood Story Project works with high school students and their families to write about their lives and neighborhoods. Students learn to write creative non-fiction and vignettes, conduct in-depth interviews of family members and neighbors, and take photographs. Community writing projects allow us to be the authors of our own stories, and infuse our community with real and important literature.

(Also check out the Lower East Side Biography Project -kc.)

ABC requests citizen videos to enhance it's TV news program

After the print media's integrating citizen contributions in their papers and online editions, TV is now doing the same, requesting citizen videos shot with digital cameras or cameraphones for their news programs. News.com reports.

"USA Networks, Fox and NBC are programming shows featuring the most popular video shorts circulating on the Net in the coming months. And ABC News Digital plans to enhance its television news program by drawing on video captured by viewers using mobile phones.

ABC News also introduced an online service devoted to collecting viewers' video that's been captured by multimedia-equipped mobile phones. ABC collects and edits video from the online service, which is called "Seen & Heard in America," so that it can incorporate it regularly into shows like "World News Tonight" and "Good Morning America."

Wifi Boombox

[via isnoop]

Check out Make Zine's article about a "Linux powered, wireless sniffing web radio boom box":

"For the past few months, I've been working on a web radio boombox. I've hollowed out a perfectly good radio and made room for a tiny motherboard and power supply that are set up to run Damn Small Linux off of a USB flash drive. There is a wireless card inside, and the box is configured to sniff out wireless networks and automatically start streaming web radio on any friendly Wi-fi network."

Citizen Journalism Gets $11M

One of the world's most successful citizen journalism sites, Korea’s OhmyNews, has gotten an $11-million investment from Softbank.

The site -- which has built a team of almost 40,000 citizen reporters -- will use the investment to launch a Japanese news site, the first “stepping stone” of the soon-to-be-formed OhmyNews International. It also plans to develop its video journalism arm and improve its English-language edition.

If you want to make games, don't do a game-design degree

Filed under: Culture, Business

In the Technology section from today's Guardian, Aleks Krotoski discusses the current trend for British Universities to run game designing degree courses. The industry has been encouraging Universities to run these courses, based on the reasonable logic that if graduates are trained how to make games before they start work, development times will be much shorter. Aleks asks whether this degree program is detracting from the spirit of creativity in the games industry.

It's true that the technical aspect of games development lends itself to a classroom environment, but do game design courses teach students the essential creative element of game creation? Aleks reasons that other courses not directly related to games (she suggests History, creative writing or philosophy as alternate courses) may give graduates the inspiration required to move the games industry away from "hackneyed paradigms and established genres". The last thing the games industry needs is an endless cycle of mainstream games made by gamers, for gamers. A narrow model such as this leaves little room for innovation.

Wearable Game

Clues Woven Into Cloth

If you find yourself wearing clothes from a new company called Edoc Laundry, beware: Strangers may walk up to you on the street to examine the intricacies of your shirt's patterns. That's because Edoc Laundry's first line, expected to launch March 1, literally weaves an episodic, multimedia game into the fabric of the garments. The Seattle-based company is believed to be the first to attempt such a fashion feat.

The idea is an extension of so-called alternate-reality games, or ARGs, in which people try to solve puzzles that are propagated online but require players to team up to find clues in the real world. Usually, the games are promotional vehicles for other products, including video games and movies. Examples of ARGs include 2004's "I Love Bees," which was a lead-in to Bungie Studios' "Halo 2" for Xbox, and 2005's "Last Call Poker," which promoted Activision's "Gun."

Edoc Laundry's line integrates an ARG into its shirts, hats and accessories. The story involves the mysterious death of the manager of a fictional band called Poor Richard. Players find clues such as words and symbols embedded in the clothes. They then head to a Web site where they can unlock complex elements of the overriding story of Poor Richard and its music..." Continue reading Wearable game weaves clues into cloth by Daniel Terdiman, CNET News.com. [via Jim Downing on Smart Mobs]

STRP Festival

Art, Technology and Popular Culture

The STRP Festival will take place between the 24th and 26th of March 2006 in the former industrial area, Strijp S, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. STRP is a festival at the intersection of art, technology and popular culture in the full context of all art disciplines. A festival where the public is treated to a broad palette of works through in-depth presentations and large spectacles, which provide an image of how visual art, design, stage arts, film, architecture and popular culture develop themselves through the means or appliance of both new and existing technology.

ROBOTICS: Amorphic RobotWorks (USA) - Inflatable Bodies, Robotlab (GER) - Juke_bots, Bill Vorn (CAN) - Hysterical Machines, Pascal Glissmann, Martina Höfflin (GER) - Electronic Life Forms (ELF), Garnet Hertz (CAN) - Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot #3, Gijs van Bon - Arabesk #23, Time's up/HRL (AUT), Bar Bot - Dr. Christoph Bartneck (GER) - eMuu, Robbert Smit, Graham Smith, HKU - Telemoby, Björn Schülke (GER) - Nervous, Markus Lerner, Andre Stubbe (GER) - Outerspace, Michiel van Overbeek - Nazarenos, Lara Greene (UK) - You Move Me, Fred Abels & Mirjam Langemeijer - Dirk.

INTERACTIVE ART: Marnix de Nijs - RMR (runmotherfuckerrun), C6 (UK) - Want Need, //////////fur//// art entertainment interfaces (GER) - PainStation, Marnix de Nijs & Edwin van der Heide - Spatial Sounds, Mateusz Herczka - 44\13, Debbie does art - Cockroachlounge, Walter Langelaar - SUB-OBJECT_2.1, Raymond Deirkauf, Beyond Expression - Ray's, Aldje van Meer en Radboud Mens - Realsound, Kim Boekhout van Solinge - Ruissimulatie, David Kousemaker - TouchMe, Prohaska, Sägmüller, Demblin (AUT) - Unplugger v1.1/Plug In to Black Out, Prohaska (AUT) - KRFTWRK, Crew (BE) - Degenerator 2.0, Paul Klotz - 3D-Quoter.

MUSIC: Dj's--Jeff Mills (DVJ-set, USA) - Derrick May (USA) - Daniel Wang (USA) - DJ Krust (UK) - Addictive TV (DVJ Set, UK) - Dick El Demasiado - Lady Aida - Steffi - Martyn (DJ Pan) - Robob - Rick Angel - Ari Daily - Caz One Live: Karl Bartos (Ex-Kraftwerk, GER) - Mouse on Mars (GER) - DMX Krew (UK) - Atom Heart (GER / CHI) - Octave One (USA) - Joris Voorn - Secret Cinema - Zeena Parkins & Ikue Mori (USA) - Beautyon (UK) - Daniel Wang (USA) - Kettel - Geigercounting - Dijf Sanders (BE) - Dexter - Like a Tim - Vert (GER/UK) - Drillem - Taeji Sawai (JPN) - Ella Bandita - Yutaka Makino (JPN) - RA-X and the Raiders of the Lost Cause - David Grubbs (USA) - Solid Decay - Hrvatski.

VISUALS: Live Cinema--Peter Greenaway (UK): Tulse Luper VJ performance - Skoltz Kolgen (CAN) - Telcosystems - Addictive TV (UK): The Eye of the Pilot - Boris en Brecht Debackere (BE): Rotor - Optical Machines - SXNDRX: Videoboxing; Video-art/art videoclips--Cinefeel: Music Videos - Addictive TV (UK): Mixmasters - Optronica (UK): Visual Music on the Screen - WORM: Live Cinema DVD 1 - NOTV: Visual Music 2 - Floris Kaayk: The Order Electrus; Vj's--VJ Oxygen others. Live visuals & presentations by Holland-Interactive. Special outdoor light installation by Har Hollands.

Films: Fritz Lang (GER) - Metropolis, Fred M. Wilcox (USA) - Forbidden Planet, Mamoru Oshii (JPN) - Ghost in the Shell 2, Het uur van de wolf - Op zoek naar een vergeten toepassing, Lesic, Lindgreen & Pancras, When I sold my soul to the machine, Len Lye (NZL) - Birth of a Robot, Lillian Schwartz (USA) - Pixilliation, Robert Seidel(GER) -Grau, Phillipp Hirsch (GER) - Inside, Alexander Rutterford (UK) - Gantz Graf, Alexander Rutterford (UK) - 3Space, Johnny Hardstaff (UK) - Future of Gaming, George Melies (FRA) - Le Voyage dans la Lune

OTHER: Theatre: Pipslab: The washing powder conspiracy, produced by Paradiso-Melkweg Productiehuis - Crew (BE): _U - Eboman: SampleMadnesS

Workshop: Ralf Schreiber, Tina Tonagel and Christian Faubel (GER) 'Chirping and Crawling' Robotworkshop

Lectures: Karl Bartos (Ex Kraftwerk, GER) - Bas Haring - Dirk van Weelde - Dr. Christoph Bartneck (GER) - Kees Tazelaar - Koert van Mensvoort Peter Verhelst (BE) - Hans Beekmans - Waag Society

STRP Foundation
P.O. Box 272 / 5600 AG Eindhoven / The Netherlands
Tel: +31 40 2367228 / Fax: +31 40 2377676

Video Security Blanket

Via the Commons Music blog, I see this in-depth article about the fact that hardly any graphics cards you buy today will be compatible with the forthcoming HDCP copy-protection standard:

HDCP stands for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection and is an Intel-initiated program that was developed with Silicon Image. This content protection system is mandatory for high-definition playback of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. If you want to watch movies at 1980×1080, your system will need to support HDCP. If you don’t have HDCP support, you’ll only get a quarter of the resolution.

As part of the Windows-Vista Ready Monitor article, I was going to publish a list of all of the graphics cards that currently support HDCP. I mean, I remember GPUs dating as far back as the Radeon 8500 that had boasted of HDCP support.

Turns out, we were all deceived.

Although ATI has had “HDCP support” in their GPUs since the Radeon 8500, and NVIDIA has had “HDCP support” in their GPUs since the GeForce FX5700, it turns out that things are more complicated — just because the GPU itself supports HDCP doesn’t mean that the graphics card can output a DVI/HDCP compliant stream. There needs to be additional support at the board level, which includes licensing the HDCP decoding keys from the Digital Content Protection, LLC (a spin-off corporation within the walls of Intel).

(Continued at The Technology Liberation Front.)

EVERPLAY

Via del.icio.us/yatta

MySpace and Youth

Danah Boyd gave a talk recently:

When MySpace was initially introduced, skeptics thought that it would be just another fad because previous sites like Friendster had risen and crashed. Unlike the 20-somethings who invaded Friendster, the teens have more reason to participate in profile creation and public commentary. Furthermore, MySpace's messaging is better suited for youths' asynchronous messaging needs. They can send messages directly from friends' profiles and check whether or not their friends have logged in and received their email. Unlike adults, youth are not invested in email; their primary peer-to-peer communication occurs synchronously over IM. Their use of MySpace is complementing that practice.

MySpace at least once a day or whenever computer access is possible. Teens that have a computer at home keep MySpace opened while they are doing homework or talking on instant messenger. In schools where it is not banned or blocked, teens check MySpace during passing period, lunch, study hall and before/after school. This is particularly important for teens who don't have computer access at home. For most teens, it is simply a part of everyday life - they are there because their friends are there and they are there to hang out with those friends. Of course, its ubiquitousness does not mean that everyone thinks that it is cool. Many teens complain that the site is lame, noting that they have better things to do. Yet, even those teens have an account which they check regularly because it's the only way to keep up with the Jones's.

Iran endorses its own blogging revolution

Originally from The Agonist, ReBlogged by huong on Feb 22, 2006 at 11:06 PM

Gungirl Sequencer: World's Simplest, Free Audio Multitrack (Win/Linux)

Gungirl Sequencer

At version 0.3, so your mileage may vary, but could be a fun tool to have around -- or the beginning of your very own audio tool, if you've got the programming chops. Who's the gun-toting grrrl who created this little gem? Um . . . Richard Spindler. So I'm guessing he didn't name it after himself. Via AudioMastermind blog, which has been on a roll lately.

Richard also has a simple open-source movie editor project going that looks quite capable. (Also under development; Linux source only.)

Only Gungirl can give you a ghetto rendition of the Ableton Live knobs, however. Enjoy!.

Metropolis on Internet Archive

First M, now Metropolis, one of Fritz Lang's other masterpieces, is available for download on Internet Archive.

As Bibi says, other formats are available at the Public Domain Movies. Related: Metropolis poster fetches record.

Open Source CDN

The Coral Content Distribution Network
Not a CDN for streaming, rather a distributed caching system. Developed at NYU and Open Source. Pretty interesting..

QuickTime Streaming (without a Mac)

abstract plane - products - uplink

Vara Software : Wirecast

Not sure about either of them as I haven't tested on a PC but looks good..

Shoot, Mix and Share Video

//// Welcome to eyespot ////
Just came upon this interesting new platform for online video editing. Flash based and targeted to non-video folk. I like the MMS submission process for mobile users and blog publishing though I wish it created a feed for use in things like FireANT. Guess that is a bit hard when everything is Flash video based.

From the site:
Shoot, Mix, and Share your Video.
Use the eyespot Mixer to combine your videos, photos and music. Share your video and mixes with the world for Free.

lightnet generation internet politics

Part I: reblogging some stuff

Josh Kinberg on unmediated: NBC sends YouTube Take-Down Notice for SNL Lazy Sunday

Of course, some people think that YouTube should be congratulated for their copyright infringing practices. Here's what Xeni Jardin says about it on BoingBoing:

Boing Boing: NBC nastygrams YouTube over "Lazy Sunday"

This isn't like another television network broadcasting the skit without permission. YouTube is a service through which individual fans can share stuff they're nuts about with others. NBC issuing a C&D to YouTube makes about as much sense as NBC sending attorneys to the homes of every blogger or Livejournaler user who posted a link to a torrent somewhere

Sorry, Xeni, that's completely wrong. In the same blog entry where YouTube responds to the take-down notice they also say:

YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month

So how exactly are they different from a TV network? How are they exempt from the laws and standard practices of the industry?

Part II: explaining it

Josh Kinberg is the main writer above. Josh is a co-founder of the videoblogging subculture and co-creator of FireAnt, a videoblog aggregator. Josh is arguing against YouTube from a lightnet perspective. He's an activist for internet video which is native to the internet, meaning the partipatory kind.

Xeni Jardin is the blogger he's responding to. Xeni is a contributor to BoingBoing, an important blog whose digital politics are from the P2P period. These political ideas center on defending unauthorized distribution.

Both Josh and Xeni are part of the bleeding edge, and not long ago it would have been very surprising to see such a stark difference in their views. What this exchange shows is that lightnet is a new fault line in digital politics. Is the work at hand about samizdat, as Xeni thinks, or about participatory media, as Josh thinks?

I have personally been blown off with gusto on this issue by members of the samizdat wing who felt that lightnet is either collaboration in the Vichy mold or just plain pussy. These ideas are new, counterintuitive and have near-zero visibility outside of the participatory media movement.

Body as Personal Area Network

Chips that really get under your skin

"Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) presented a chip that is implanted in a user's forearm to function as an audio signal transmission wire that links to an iPod. Many of the presentations featured devices that conserved power, though this chip goes a step further, harnessing the human body's natural conductive properties to create personal-area networks. It is not practical to wire together the numerous devices that people carry with them, and Bluetooth connections fall prey to interference, leading scientists to explore the application of the human body as a networking cable. The Korean scientists augmented an iPod nano with their wideband signaling chip. When a user kept his finger pressed to the device, it transmitted data at 2 Mbps, at a consumption rate lower than 10 microwatts. Researchers from the University of Utah also presented a chip that scans brainwave activity by wirelessly streaming data through monitors in the hopes of creating prosthetics that quadriplegics could operate with their brain waves, though both projects are still in the preliminary research stages. () These chips are not something that will be included in one of Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld keynotes anytime soon." ACM Technology News. See Chips that really get under your skin by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com (see Microsoft patents body power by Matt Loney, CNET News.com) [blogged by nicolas on pasta and vinegar]

US copyright head: world "totally rejects" webcasting restrictions

At stake is the "webcasting provision" of the "Broadcasters' Treaty" underway at WIPO, the UN agency that handles copyrights, patents and the like. The Webcasting provision would make it illegal to retransmit Creative Commons licensed works (as well as public domain works, uncopyrightable works like those made by the US government, etc) without permission of the person who hosts them. In other words, it will no longer be enough to know that the author of the work wants you to share it -- you'll also need permission from the company that hosts and distributes the files.

The treaty wil eliminate fair use for all Internet audio/video casts, by creating a different set of rules for what's fair and what isn't when it comes to casters than when it comes to copyright holders. You'll have to negotiate two separate, contradictory "fair use" systems whenever it comes time to making a podcast.

At the UN, the US consistently argues that this is a popular idea. They've been put up to advancing it by an org called DIMA that's a front for Microsoft and Yahoo, who like the idea of being Internet audio/video gatekeepers.

I've delivered a letter to the UN signed by 20 tech companies that oppose the inclusion of webcasting in the Broadcast Treaty. The copies of the letter were stolen from the literature table and put in the trashcans in the toilets. Repeatedly.

I questioned Mary-Beth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights, about the Webcasting treaty during the Q&A after her panel at a conference at UNC last November. To everyone's surprise, she admitted that the US's position that this is a fundamentally popular idea was a lie:

[7:20]...I think the most controversial piece is the scope of the right that's being created. The position that the US took is well, if you're going to give that type of a right to a broadcaster -- theft of a signal -- then you should look at all people who are similarily situated, including webcasters. Now, that has been totally rejected by the rest of the world."

Credit: The University of North Carolina and UNC-TV for the video capture and TJ Ward for digizing it.

democracy: roll your own tv

The Participatory Culture Foundation just launched the Windows version of their internet video player (formerly called DTV) today, and renamed their platform Democracy, which includes tools for playing, broadcasting, and sharing net videos. Like FireANT, which also recently had a big upgrade, Democracy Player makes it pretty easy to subscribe to feeds and browse through videos you've downloaded. What's great about the Democracy solution is that it's very easy to create new channels for other people to watch. You can use their Video Bomb to make your own channel with links to videos anywhere - essentially allowing anyone to curate a found video blog like Rocketboom's (great and fun) Apollo Pony, or collect all of their own videos in one place, like someone at the PCF nicely did for the brilliant ladies of The Variety Shac. You can also use Broadcast Machine to host and create your own video blog or channel, complete with torrent creation to ease the bandwidth on your server.

The whole platform's so well-thought out and easy to use that it's a near miracle that this is an open source project by a non-profit foundation, considering the enormous amounts of money and attention lately focusing on this space, and on sites like YouTube and Google Video, and the Video Bomb front page already stands up very well against those sites in terms of sheer time wasting value (personally, I already prefer it).

It'll be interesting to read what people say about this over the next week or so; until then, it's definitely worth checking out on your own.

This is one of the most sober and thoughtful discussions about the current state of our polarized world i have read since entering the new century. Please take the time to lift yourself from the doom and gloom by reading Phillip Slater's excellent essay, WHY AMERICA IS POLARIZED - michael

"The purest forms of a cultural system always appear as it decays. When a system is ailing, its believers try to strip away its contradictions and inconsistencies, leaving a system that is more pure, more rigid, and hence more fragile."

Political analysts have been impressed lately by the polarization of the American public between reds and blues. Eighty percent of our population has declared itself impervious to persuasion. Why has this happened? Why have political positions hardened while the pragmatic center has shrunk?

While the media speak of the new importance of 'moral values', as if this were some recent fashion trend that had just burst upon the scene, this 'red/blue' division is rooted in major historical changes--changes that are welcomed by half of our nation, appalling to the other half. Furthermore, this division is not simply an American phenomenon, but a global one, rooted in the most revolutionary cultural shift in the history of our species.

In 1996 business writer E. E. Lawler found that 80% of all the companies he studied had some form of participatory management.

In 1996, for the first time, there were more visits by Americans to alternative practitioners than to traditional Western physicians.

In 2001 scientists began to consider the possibility that the "laws" of nature might not be immutable.

In 2002 lawyers argued that chimpanzees should be accorded legal status as persons.

In 2004, for the first time, more women than men applied to medical school, while women made up a majority of first-year law students and outnumbered male college students 56% to 44%.

In 2004, gay marriages became legal in Massachusetts.

All of these events would have been inconceivable fifty years ago. During this time we've seen social change taking place at a rate unprecedented in the history of the planet. And while many of the changes have had widespread popular support, they have also--especially when combined with the unrelenting pace of technological innovation--stressed our adaptive capacities. We've not only had to adjust to computers and email and cell phones, but also to the changing roles of women and minorities, the "sexual revolution", the decline of the nuclear family, the growth of the global economy, the ecological movement, and so on.

Windows Vista variations confirmed

Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360, Online

Microsoft has been vocal about their renewed commitment to PC gaming, but just how many variations of the next Windows will there be? At least eight, confirms TeamXbox, who uncovered a support link on Microsoft's revamped Vista site (which was dead at the time of this writing).

Gamers will want to pick up a copy of Vista Ultimate, which will include a "Game Performance Tweaker" and other offerings targeted at high-end PC users. For more detailed information on each version, check out this earlier Windows IT Pro article.

Newspaper to launch E ink test

In April, the Antwerp-based De Tijd will run a test for 200 subscribers by giving them a portable device using electronic ink technology from E Ink Corp. and an e-reader manufactured by iRex Technologies BV.

The newspaper will be updated wirelessly throughout the day.

Microsoft's Mobile VoIP

Rick: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. - Casablanca

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced their plans at the 3GSM show in Barcelona last week.

Edgeio and the distributed world

I got a preview of Michael Arrington’s Edgeio — the classified system for the distributed future — and I think it is more important than it looks.

Edgeio as it stands is pretty simple: You tag a post on your blog “listing” and Edgeio will spot it and add it to its data base. You add more tags (e.g., “for rent” and “vacation”) and your post/ad will appear in the appropriate categories. Edgeio will allow you to come in and claim your blog to be able to get direct communication from respondents and, eventually, to upgrade your ad via typography and graphics and preference (I hope I got that right). This is just a start but it is a proof of concept of a new world. I’ve been waiting for someone to do this. Arrington has.

I’ve been writing for a long time that the future of classified advertising — and more of media — is distributed. That is, you won’t need to go to a centralized marketplace — the newspaper or even Craigslist or Monster — to let the world know you want to sell or buy or find something. Instead, you’ll be able to put your listing up anywhere with proper tags and then specialized search engines, like Edgeio and Oodle, will find them so buyer and seller can find each other in a distributed marketplace with far less friction and far more control at the edges.

Note well that Arrington is also setting the early standards for tagging ads so they can be found. I believe that he also needs to concentrate on putting data within ads, not just on top of them (e.g., “languages spoken = German, C++”) so more effective searches and matches can take place. Google Base may do this, but for it to be effective, the tags need to be open. What we’re really headed for is microformats and a structure in which people swarm around tags with efficiency so they and their stuff can be found. It works in Flickr and Del.icio.us and will certainly work in marketplaces where money matters.

As friction is taken out of the marketplace — as newspapers, Realtors, car dealers, eBay, and others who have controlled our information are undercut by free and open standards — there is a need to add value back into transactions. Craig Donato of Oodle — the other Craig, the one who will cause more change in the newspaper industry than the first one — is eloquent on this, pointing out that the marketplace still wants such things as anonymity to enable transactions and authority to vet ads and promotion to market them. Edgeio and Oodle — not to mention Indeed and Simply Hired and even eBay and many other comers — will try to add back some of these functions. I argued the other day that we will also need some physical-world functions, like concierges to handle house tours for far less than real-estate agents charge (cue defense wailing by Realtors here.)

: OK, but this is bigger than classifieds. It’s bigger in two ways:

: First, this is really about control. Realtors and multiple-listing services act as if they own our for-sale listings. But the truth is, that’s our information; it’s data we create and we own that we lend to these agents if they perform a service for us (or because they hold a monopoly on that service today).

I was talking about this with Seth Goldstein of AttentionTrust and Rootmarkets the other day: We own not just our attention data — what we look at, what we do, the things that Seth works in — but also have an even greater proprietary interest in the transactions we create. This holds if we are a prospect to buy a house and if we are selling a house.

The natural state of the marketplace should be that we control that information at the edges — buyer and seller — and that others join in that transaction only when and if they add value, such as the functions I listed just above. This will make for less friction and a more efficient marketplace.

It will also make for a lot of unemployed middlemen. The newspapers and Realtors that charged us too much for too little for too long will be knocked aside at the first opportunity.

: Second, this is also about content … and about people. Everything Edgeio does for classified ads, it — or someone — could do for, say, local restaurant reviews. Rather than relying on one restaurant critic for a paper to tell us what’s good and rather than trying to get all the diners out there to come to a centralized marketplace of reviews (see the late Abuzz et al), we should be able to write our reviews on our blogs, under our identities, and have them found with all the other reviews. That can occur thanks to tagging. This is what I hoped (incorrectly) that Dinnerbuzz would do, though I explained my wishes here.

It’s about people because identity matters: We want to know who is reviewing the restaurant or selling the house or seeeking the job. Verified identity and trust, I believe, will be the next huge frontier of business online. More on that later.

And it’s about people because such means of tagging and searching as Edgeio enables will also help people find each other. I wrote about this long ago, inspired by David Galbraith’s one-line-bio tag. See also Consumating.org, where people tag themselves.

See, this tagging thing is about more than bookmarks and coolness. They help reorganize the world and its relationships.

That’s why I say that Edgeio is a big deal, because it begins to enable this new world.

: A few of my posts are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here….

: [DISCLOSURE: Michael Arrington and I are each aiding a startup. I gave him my two-cents about Edgeio. He once gave me a Techcrunch T-shirt. We link to each other. He held a spot for me at the lunch table at Web 2.0 And aren’t these disclosure statements getting a bit ridiculous?]

: SPEAKING OF TECHCRUNCH: I see that Arrington will critique presentations by 10 companies at Supernova.

: LATER: Note good comments, including one from none other than Craig Newmark.

reverbiage news aggregator

a live news feed aggregator featuring auto-tagged & filtered news stories from NPR (National Public Radio), augmented with different forms of data visualization. the homepage features an animated map-based feed with circles denoting the popularity of the different news story tags. in addition, the individual tag pages contain interactive timeline graphs. see also what's up news map. [reverbiage.com]

Elatable | Bradley Horowitz » Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers

"There are a couple of interesting points worth noting. The first is that we don't need to convert 100% of the audience into "active" participants to have a thriving product that benefits tens of millions of users. In fact, there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to do this. The hurdles that users cross as they transition from lurkers to synthesizers to creators are also filters that can eliminate noise from signal. Another point is that the levels of the pyramid are containing - the creators are also consumers."

Andrew Keen: Web 2.0 Is Reminiscent Of Marx

Empowering citizen media, radically democratize, smash elitism, content redistribution, authentic community … This sociological jargon has now become the lexicon of new media capitalism.

"Just as Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-realization in a communist utopia, so the Web 2.0 cult of creative self-realization has seduced everyone in Silicon Valley. The movement bridges counter-cultural radicals of the '60s such as Steve Jobs with the contemporary geek culture of Google's Larry Page. Between the book-ends of Jobs and Page lies the rest of Silicon Valley, including radical communitarians like Craig Newmark (of Craigslist.com), intellectual property communists such as Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, economic cornucopians like Wired magazine editor Chris "Long Tail" Anderson, and new media moguls Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle."

Fake Wedding Fools Korean Media

Here are two articles with opposing examples on the reliability of citizen reporters/bloggers. The first one (Fake Wedding Fools Korean Media) describes a mock wedding on a Tokyo subway captured on cameraphone which spread like wildfire on blogs, and was then picked up by the main stream media as a true story. The second (Bloggers: an army of irregulars), is one journalist's experience of how bloggers have been a very valuabe source for digging up the truth. He gives several examples, one of which is a blogger was responsible for having tracked down the origin of a fake cartoonwhich fueled the furore over the characterisation of Muhammad in a Danish paper.

Music, fashion, film -- different approaches to ownership/control of creativity

(Thanks, Paul!)

David Bollier and Laurie Racine write, in Christian Science Monitor, on the differences between the music, fashion, and film industries when it comes to controlling creativity:

Is it possible that the fashion industry, long patronized as a realm of the ephemeral and insubstantial, is the real bellwether for future ideas of "ownership" of creative content?

Through fashion we have a ringside seat on the ecology of creativity in a world of networked communication. Ideas arise, evolve through collaboration, gain currency through exposure, mutate in new directions, and diffuse through imitation. The constant borrowing, repurposing, and transformation of prior work are as integral to creativity in music and film as they are to fashion.

Although the music and film industries acknowledge the cultural commons as a source of inspiration, they then turn around and try to claim exclusive ownership of the results. The Disney Company, for example, has "taken private" dozens of folk stories and literary classics while contributing nothing to the public domain. Such one-way privatization of our culture makes it difficult for new creators to build from works that were themselves derivative at an earlier point.

Creativity can endure only so much private control before it careens into a downward spiral of sterile involution. If it is to be fresh, passionate, and transformative, creativity must have the room to breathe and grow, "unfettered and alive."

The legendary designer Coco Chanel understood this reality. She once said, "Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only; fashion is something in the air. It's the wind that blows in the new fashion; you feel it coming, you smell it ... in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."

The fashion world recognizes that creativity cannot be bridled and controlled and that obsessive quests to do so will only diminish its vitality. Other content industries would do well to heed this wisdom.

NBC sends YouTube Take-Down Notice for SNL Lazy Sunday

This video is illegal.

YouTube received a take-down notice from NBC regarding the SNL Lazy Sunday video. That was sure a long time coming. Here's what YouTube says on their blog:

NBC recently contacted YouTube and asked us to remove Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia" video. We know how popular that video is but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL's "Lazy Sunday" video for free on NBC's website.

This response from YouTube must be firmly tongue-in-cheek. They "respect the rights of copyright holders"?! Give me a break. There's tons of infringing content all over YouTube. There's no way they could possibly plead ignorance here (they even hired the brother of one of the SNL sketch writers to be their "director of community" soon after they struck gold with this clip)... its clear that the video was infringing from the moment it was posted onto the site. Its an entire clip from SNL, not an excerpt, and certainly not fair use. Its got an NBC watermark on it.

At what point was YouTube given permission to re-broadcast this video to millions of viewers through their website? Its not like this was file sharing amongst a few friends, this was re-broadcasted on a video portal site to millions of viewers. This is like CBS recording Saturday Night Live and then airing it the next day... and everyday after that for weeks. YouTube quite obviously benefits from video plaigarism of this sort all the time... but then again they're not alone.

This clip was all over the internet. It was also on CollegeHumor.com, and yanked from there by Google Video (obvious from the CollegeHumor watermark, so its a copy of a copy on Google). It was probably on several other video hosting sites and portals (there's a lot of them out there now), as well as on several personal websites.

NBC later released the clip as a free download on iTunes (its now $1.99), and they offer it for free viewing on their website (only for PC users with Internet Explorer).

Of course, some people think that YouTube should be congratulated for their copyright infringing practices. Here's what Xeni Jardin says about it on BoingBoing:

This isn't like another television network broadcasting the skit without permission. YouTube is a service through which individual fans can share stuff they're nuts about with others. NBC issuing a C&D to YouTube makes about as much sense as NBC sending attorneys to the homes of every blogger or Livejournaler user who posted a link to a torrent somewhere

Sorry, Xeni, that's completely wrong. In the same blog entry where YouTube responds to the take-down notice they also say:

YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month

So how exactly are they different from a TV network? How are they exempt from the laws and standard practices of the industry?

digital convergence initiative: mobile content festival

MobileFest2006 is looking for mobile content submissions that explore the mobile lifestyle. The concept is most interested in content made for mobile devices, not so much made by them, although we certainly encourage you to push the envelope. Our criteria are extremely broad and we only ask that you keep word "mobile" in mind.

(The soundtrack in juxtaposition with the written copy is worth the clickthrough alone. -kc.)

Pay-per vs. Free Ads

From Podcasting News:

"Are Apple's $1.99 Video Downloads Doomed? February 16, 2006 : Rocketboom may be on to something. According to a recent report, consumers prefer commercial-sponsored on-demand video content to paying $1.99 for programs without commercials by a greater than three-to-one margin.

"Video downloads for $1.99 will have limited appeal. Consumers will grow tired of having their credit cards charged $1.99 every time they download a rerun of CSI," said Craig Leddy, an analyst with the Points North Group research firm.

When asked if they missed their favorite TV show and could watch it online or order it through cable or satellite, 62% of survey respondents said they would prefer getting it for free with commercials, versus 17% who chose paying $1.99 without commercials. 21% are undecided.

In the demographic of consumers aged 18-34, 68% chose free, ad-supported versus 26% favoring pay, and only 5% undecided. . ."

RIAA Sez Ripping Illegal

The RIAA seems to be changing its annoying tune these days, saying that ripping a CD that is lawfully yours to your own MP3 player is no longer fair game. During the US Supreme Court Grokster case, the RIAA made sure to tell us that this was OK and that they loved us. However, they're currently arguing that it's illegal and should stay that way forever and ever. I have a feeling this isn't going to stick, but it's not against this association's history to try to destroy anything that might help the consumer when it comes to digital rights. More on this when we get it.

RIAA now says ripping is illegal [Inquirer]

Citizen Craig on citizen journalism

City Pages Blotter: Citizen Craig on citizen journalism.

OpenSparc - Open Source Hardware

OpenSparc is Sun's attempt to bring open-source thinking and cooperation into the realm of hardware design:

Goals of the OpenSPARC Initiative

• To significantly increase participation in processor architecture development and application design by making cutting-edge hardware IP freely available.
  
• To eliminate barriers to the next big build-out of the Internet.
  
• To improve collaboration and cooperation among hardware designers.
  
• To enable community members to build on proven technology at a markedly lower cost.
  
• To encourage innovation.
  
• To foster bringing bold new products to market.
  

The cellphone and the RFID tag

"A well known cryptographer has applied power analysis techniques to crack passwords for the most popular brand of RFID tags,"the EETimes reports.Professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute,Adi Shamir,"used a directional antenna and digital oscilloscope to monitor power use by RFID tags while they were being read.Patterns in power use could be analyzed to determine when the tag received correct and incorrect password bits,he said.The reflected signals contain a lot of information," Shamir said. "We can see the point where the chip is unhappy if a wrong bit is sent and consumes more power from the environment…to write a note to RAM that it has received a bad bit and to ignore the rest of the string," he added."I haven’t tested all RFID tags,but we did test the biggest brand and it is totally unprotected,"Shamir said.Using this approach,"a cellphone has all the ingredients you need to conduct an attack and compromise all the RFID tags in the vicinity,"he added.Shamir said the pressure to get tags down to five cents each has forced designers to eliminate any security features,a shortcoming that needs to be addressed in next-generation products".
(Via Newscientist technology blog)

Cellphone could crack RFID tags,says cryptographer

More Nintendo DS Developments: TV and Browser

Nintendo goes just a little bit further with its plans to update the Nintendo DS, announcing that it should soon be adding features—like web surfing and HD TV programming. Though this would first be for Japanese DS owners, the company hopes to begin selling the web browser (which will work in conjunction with the DS's WiFi wireless network) in June and launch the card with digital TV receiver and antenna by the end of 2006. The web browser was developed with Opera software and should cost about $32.

Other announcements included a new lineup for Japanese software, like a foreign language guide for travelers, a reference guide in Japanese and English, training software to improve penmanship in Japanese and a cooking guide giving step-by-step voice instructions for recipes. Wow. Oh, and Tetris DS that would include characters like Mario and Donkey Kong in awkward poses.

Nintendo unveils TV, Web browser features for DS [Reuters]

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough

Hmmm... Hairsprays that can lift and tuck your coiffure on hot summer days? --hn

Originally posted by baratunde from del.icio.us/tag/future, ReBlogged by huong on Feb 15, 2006 at 04:22 PM

skype 2.0

Skype will release a new version of its powerful Internet telephony software that integrates video conferencing for both Intel and PowerPC

A report on MacObserver claimed that Skype 2.0 for Mac (scheduled to ship in the second quarter) would support ten-way video conferences, but would be reliant on the Intel processors Apple now employs.

However, Skype later rebutted these claims, saying: "I can tell you without question that Skype for Mac 2.0, including video, when released, will run on the PowerPC architecture."

He added that one feature may be limited on PowerPC "temporarily" - but not video conferencing:

"There is only one feature that potentially will be limited temporarily to Intel Dual Core machines and that is the ability to host audio calls of between six to ten users," he said.

Skype 2.0 for Windows was announced on February 8, and also relies on Intel processors.

Complete List of Web 2.0 Products and Services

While I'm working on building my list of Web 2.0 Company Blogs, I feel compelled to point out a similar resource being built on Listable.

This is a list of Web 2.0 products and services. My list concentrates on blogs from the companies that puts out these products. What a great resource for me to use to help me build my list. Thanks to all that contribute to the Listable list.

BTW, Listable doesn't have a blog. How am I supposed to keep up with new features? :-(

High tech, kids, interactive toys and the “why” question

Yet another article about how toy makers push high tech for tots, nothing so new there but it tackles some issues related to this phenomenon:

“The cool thing about that is that kids are role-playing what they see around them, and they see their siblings using digital cameras and using digital phones,” Rice said. “They see their parents using those, and so that’s what they want to role-play with.”
(…)
Newborns may be too young for plug-and-play TV games, but that doesn’t mean they’re left out of the digital revolution. VTech, for example, has a high-tech toy aimed at newborns, the Explore & Learn mat — where infants are introduced to numbers, letters, colors and
shapes as they touch various parts of an electronic but machine-washable play mat.
(…)
The toys are popular not only because they help impart cognitive and emotional intelligence, but also because they involve parents in the process.

hen kids are that little, parents are one of their favorite playthings, so having their parents’ time and interacting with their parents is great,” Rice said.

It also underline a very important trend:

“Today’s kids understand computers and the technology from the get-go. It’s part of their world; it’s like the air,” he said. “They don’t question it; it’s just there.”

Why do I blog this? I am wondering about this would impact the relation society has with technology. Anne discussed the issue of the “inevitability” of technology from the designers point of view; in this case here it’s a bit different since it’s a reflection of what market researchers perceived from kids’ behavior towards technology: as a natural component of their world.

Social Software's Viral Vectors

Alex Bosworth writes: "There are three factors to viral user growth. The first factor is invitation and promotion: people who use the service reach out to people they know to spread the word. The second factor is message reception. Reached by invitation and promotion, some percentage of people decide to sign up and become part of the viral pattern. The third and final factor is reproduction: some of those signed up begin to repeat the cycle by inviting and promoting to new people."

Slashdot as Future of Media

Fortune writes:

What it seems to represent is essentially open-source journalism. People fight to make their submission the one out of those 700 each day that will make it to the front page with a byline. "The ego value of that is huge," says Jeff Bates, OSTG's vice president of editorial operations and one of Slashdot's two co-founders.

g of tremendous widespread utility for the ego value is a new phenomenon in contemporary business. It's part of what motivates open-source software programmers. As a well-paid professional journalist, when I hear that ego alone motivates contributors to a news site with 5.5 million unique visitors a month, I find it a bit unnerving, but unquestionably exciting.

What other people think

This BBC article says "people are more likely to like a song if they think others admire it,research indicates.The US study found the power of group opinion meant people who visited a new songs website gave higher ratings to tunes which had been downloaded often.Participants were also more likely to download a song if they knew others had done so,creating a snowball effect.Academics at Columbia University in New York recruited 14,000 people for the study,reports the New Scientist."

Musical taste 'swayed by peers'

$10,000 Knight-Batten Awards Call for Applicants

This from the J-Lab at the University of Maryland:

The Knight-Batten Awards have been renamed and renewed. A $10,000 Grand Prize and up to $5,000 in Special Distinction awards will honor journalism innovations that help people use media to get news and information in new ways. This year’s competition covers new ideas launched between May 1, 2005, and June 12, 2006. Deadline for entries is June 15, 2006.

See full press release here.

Is the Age of Media Giants, and Media Companies, Over?

The Guardian wonders whether “massive media companies have a compelling reason to exist in an era of media fragmentation”:

The argument is simple: as global media conglomerates struggle to hold position against falling sales in publishing, a fractured TV market, music piracy and advertising migration to old fashioned billboards, what are these groups for? The market also seems tired of them. Shares in ‘old’ media firms have fallen 25 per cent in the past two years; Google is now equal in value to Walt Disney, News Corp and Viacom combined.

The larger question, it seems to me, is whether there are any economies of scale left in media. If the costs of content creation, distribution, and viral marketing are near zero, is there a viable growth business model for media companies of any size? Will the fragmentation that’s shattering the media landscape make it impossible for any media company, save brokers like Google, to maintain revenue growth when the value is being scattered to the winds? (Even Google’s growth may hit a brick wall when there are no advertising dollars left to squeeze out of the market.)

For most of the 20th century, the economics of media were based on a mass audience — including within niches, i.e. you could reach the entire audience within any given niche. Now that even niche audiences are fragmenting, does the business of media need a fundamental reorganization? It strikes me that even the Web 2.0 vanguard is still working within the old model of building — and ultimately trying to monetize — an audience in a centralized location, i.e. a website.

Each time I raise these questions, I keep coming back to brands — if a brand like BusinessWeek can create value in a dynamic, medium-agnostic fashion, can it effectively monetize the value that the brand creates?

A lot of questions, but few evident answers. Google figured out a way to monetize media value in a way that nobody had ever thought of before, by leveraging technology to create efficiencies that were beyond the capacity of human intelligence. But what about human intelligence? We need to dream up a new way to monetize the value created by human intelligence in media.

ShoZu Powers First Ever Video Blog Concert Coverage Featuring The Veronicas: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"ShoZu today announced that Warner Brothers Record's smash pop band The Veronicas will take part in the first ever video-blog (vlog) coverage of events surrounding the worldwide release of their debut album, The Secret Life of the Veronicas. The vlogs, posted on Internet sharing site Textamerica using ShoZu technology, will be available to fans around the world, providing intimate and near-instant video of The Veronicas' personal appearances and NYC concert gig on Valentine's Day, February 14."

SHOWstudio - EDITING FASHION

A development out of our three-month MOVING FASHION project at the end of 2005, EDITING FASHION shifts the focus of SHOWstudio's ongoing exploration of fashion film from direction onto the editing process and from established, guest artists onto the SHOWstudio viewer base. For this, we are offering a package of source material –including exclusive film footage shot by Nick Knight and a selection of possible soundtracks by guest artists- that may be downloaded and edited by SHOWstudio Viewers. Viewers are asked to make an edit from the material provided, lasting up to two minutes. By keeping the source material the same in all cases, the emphasis is place on the individual editor’s approach and authorship. The finished films can then uploaded onto SHOWstudio from mid-January 2006, to be screened in the Viewers’ Cut gallery.

Gannett Paper Experiments with "MoJo" Reporters

While I was at the Emerging Mind of Community Journalism conference, I said if newspapers were smart they would pick up on the Kevin Sites Hot Zones model of solo journalism reporting, but instead of sending them to Africa, they should send their solo journalists to their local neighborhoods.

Well, Gannett's News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida, is way ahead of me and the majority of newspapers with its "mojos" or mobile journalists. They carry digital cameras, MP3 recorders and wireless laptops and hang out in neighborhoods, teach potential contributors and file stories throughout the day to their community website. The project is, according to a Gannett newsletter, a:

"new neighborhood online publishing model, "Your Community: By you, for you."

The story, in the Gannett tradition, is short and to the point and filled with how-to information and caveats.

And very quotable stuff like:

We believe that most reporters will soon be mojos, producing information seamlessly across platforms.

Mojos are devoting up to half of each workweek to educating residents about the site through one-on-one demonstrations. They offer personal training to anyone who wants to share information -- Little League coaches, Neighborhood Watch leaders, civic activists, etc. We have streamlined the process for the public to post information, and the mojos can easily teach someone to do it.

This experiment sprang from two related beliefs: 1. Deep, useful ultra-local neighborhood Web sites can be lively gathering places of people online. 2. We must have the help of residents to build these sites, but they won't know how to contribute unless we help them.

This is a must read for anyone interested in hyperlocal and citizen media. Thanks to Romenesko for the pointer.

Vlogrolling

Make your own vlogroll and vogroll
Nice vlogroll creation utility:
"generate your own spectacular vlogroll so all your buddies get hooked up, dont leave em in the dark"

MySpace has 2 1/2 times the traffic of Google

Maybe the sheer size of what is going on with the youth market will start to get peoples attention. It certainly has at Business Week.

(Also check out Derrick's related posts: The Blogger Intelligentsia Ignores the Youth Market and Peter Raises a Good Point. Ping Servers and Technorati. -kc.)

Surveillance Video Entertainment Network

SVEN - Surveillance Video Entertainment Network, aka "AI to the People," is a real-time video performance system that takes a humorous but critical look at artificial intelligence surveillance algorithms by developing techniques that detect when people look like rock stars instead of criminals, terrorists, or other "undesirable passersby".

The system consists of a camera, monitor, and two computers that can be set up wherever a CCTV monitor might be expected.

A custom computer vision application tracks pedestrians and detects their characteristics and a real-time video processing application uses this information to generate music-video like visuals from the camera feed. Once a pedestrian who looks like a rock star is detected, music video effects are triggered so the surveillance stars get a glamor treatment worthy of Cecil B himself. The resulting video and audio are displayed on a monitor in the public space, interrupting the standard security camera type display each time a likely rockstar is detected.

SVEN is a work in progress but the basic elements are working.

Videos on the project website.

A work by Amy Alexander, together with Jesse Gilbert, Wojciech Kosma, Vincent Rabaud and Nikhil Rasiwasia.

Can't resist the urge to mention The Surveillance Camera Players (SCP).

Formed in 1996, the New York-based group manifest their opposition to surveillance cameras in public places by performing silent, specially adapted plays directly in front of surveillance cameras. Their fist performace was Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi. Later performances include Orwell’s 1984 and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. There are affiliate SCP groups in Tempe, Arizona and San Francisco (USA), Bologna (I), Stockholm (S) and in Lithuania (LT).

On 19-20 March 2006, the SCP will live an international day(s?) against video surveillance.

First pictures and video of the RFID shopping assistant robots

NTT Communications and Tmsuk have begun testing the RFID-guided shopping assistant robots at a shoping mall in Fukuoka. The robots read RFID tags embedded in the floor to get information about their location . They also carry your shopping bags and provide related sales information when they arrive at their destination.

Once you've selected a store on the touch panel, the robot accompanies tyou there, reading some 5,000 smart tags embedded in the floor and relying on its sensors to detect and avoid other shoppers. Some sales items in stores have individually RFID-tagged, allowing the shopper to get product information by holding the item near the robot display. Shoppers carry active tags that announce who they are, and the robot reads the information from the tags and responds only to valid registered shoppers. In addition, shoppers can put their belongings in the robots security box and the active tags are used to lock/unlock the box.

Online shoppers will be able to interact with store personnel via a camera on the robot to get a better understanding of the merchandise offered and communicate with the sales persons through videoconferencing. When a sales agents show a sales item to the robot, the robot recognizes the product and shows a relevant information on the screen of the remote shopper.

Plenty of images.

Via RFID in Japan, and more details about how it works.

VIDEOCLIPS: NATPE 2006

Here is a selection of videoclips from the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) 2006 conference, which took place January 24th-26th in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. The clips were taken during panel discussions, at demos, and on the show floor. Click on the descriptions below to view the clips.

(Continued at ITVT Bloggit)

Monday: There's nothing mainstream about the blogosphere

New York Magazine has an interesting, albeit predictable, analysis of the blogosphere today called The Blog Establishment. The emerging hierarchy of the New New Media. The pieces examine how there really is an elite among bloggers, and that those with a good idea and the passion to compete are often shut out by the big boys.

Folks, if all you're looking for is the business and competitive angle of this phenomenon, you're going to find it. In so doing, however, you'll miss what's really taking place, and that will lead you to mistakes in attempts to participate therein. This otherwise excellent piece of work begins with the assumption that the purpose of getting into blogging is to reach the largest audience possible and monetize that audience through advertising. If not, how do you explain a line like this:

"...if you talk to many of today’s bloggers, they’ll complain that the game seems fixed. They’ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches--gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)--yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs."

(Continued at The Pomo Blog.)

Podcasting & Videoblogging Panel @ NYCGMC.

yatta posted a photo:

Standing (and squatting) room only at the Podcasting and Videoblogging panel @ the NYC Grassroots Media Conference on Saturday. Nice.

Felix Stalder

The Stuff of Culture

As culture is infusing more and more aspects of contemporary life, and the range of producers is widening but the special status of the artist and the social capital attached to this position, is being eroded. Artists are becoming, again, artisans, not fundamentally different from others creative producers. The controversy between the object-oriented and the exchange-oriented visions of culture is currently being fought on all levels, legal (expanding versus narrowing copyrights and patents), technical (digital rights management versus distribution and access technologies), and economic (exchange of commodities versus provision of services). Crucially, however, it is also fought in the field of culture itself, in ongoing experimentations on how we can produce, reproduce, and interpret new forms of meaning. This is the native environment of artists and other creative producers, whose everyday practice puts them at the heart of this epic struggle. Read The Stuff of Culture by Felix Stalder, NOEMA.

Wireless HDMI from Radiospire

Radiospire is continuing the global quest to remove wires completely with their HDMI wireless solution. The connection works up to 15 feet and will transfer at 3Gbps. Meaning you can transfer full HD video and audio goodness without having to compress any of it. Additionally it will clear at least a little bit of clutter behind that TV.

HDTV HDMI Connection Without the Wires from Radiospire [eHomeUpgrade]

Nextel A/V Data Scanner: For NASCAR

If you're a NASCAR fan, check out this stunning piece of equipment from Nextel and Sprint. An audio/video data scanner called the FanView, it will make sure you don't miss one single moment of racing magic—all over the 2.5 GHz wireless spectrum.

Gives you the race telecast, radio broadcast, up to seven in-car camera channels, direct audio feeds from pit and driver, audio replay and a live feed from the official timing and scoring system. Though not for sale, you 'll be able to rent FanView at the race, starting at $50 a day or $70 for the weekend. And remember folks, Nascar revs up on February 19th, so start your engines.

All of NASCAR in the palm of your hand [Mobilemag]

The new, improved, super, duper Dave!

Dave Winer says he was tempted to buy the advertising on Rocketboom. Damn, I wish he’d won. I would love to see a commercial advertising Dave… You get blogs and podcasts and RSS. But wait, call now and he’ll throw in OPML!…

Now play with this idea…. What if you made your own infomercial advertising you? If we’re all brands then don’t we need branding? How would I advertise me (insert punchline about that being the last thing the world needs)? How would you advertise me? How would I advertise you? What if that became a real mark of social networking: You advertise your real friends….

Participatory Media and the Incentives Problem

Why do people blog? Questions about incentives are sure to arise soon after people begin talking about participatory media (or “user-generated content” as the business people call it). Yahoo! Research Berkeley has a whole team, led by Cameron Marlow, looking at what they call the “social motives” that lead people to participate on the web.

People discussing incentives to participate in media production often assume that producers are motivated by things like novelty or ego that will soon “wear off,” and that traditional economic incentives will have to come in to replace them. Vincent Maher believes that “bloggers in late capitalist society will begin to seek financial compensation for the time spent serving increasingly large audiences,” and Scott Karp says that “unless we develop economic models to meaningfully compensate the long tail, the ego payoff for most people won’t be enough to justify the effort.” In other words, there’s no such thing as free labor.

With economic incentives come the potential for editorial influence. An increasing number of (amateur?) producers monetize their content via contextual advertisments, a practice that makes them vulnerable to accusations of rational self-interest from folks like Robert Scoble. As Maher puts it, there is worry about whether these producers will end up “simply repeating agendas set by commercial advertising keyword and search indexes.” These worries are leading some to call for better “Chinese walls” in the blogosphere.

But is the economic payoff from contextual advertising enough to keep people producing, or to motivate them to produce in the first place? Nicholas Carr says no, which leads me to wonder why people bother with the ads at all, other than to “keep tabs on what Google is doing.” Furthermore, studies of the closely related phenomenon of open source software production suggest that economic motivations do not play a major role.

So is the monetization of user-generated content through contextual advertising networks a dead end? Will bloggers eschew the paltry sums they receive, in order to guarantee the purity of their editorial independence? I believe the answer is “no,” but not because producers are greedy sell-outs or because their advertising revenues will rise to the point that they would be fools to give them up. Instead, I would argue that in a capitalist society, revenues from advertising take on a symbolic value that exceeds their actual economic value: they are proof of participation in a system larger than oneself that values one’s contributions. Just as the open source software developer wants to believe that someone is using her utility, the blogger wants to believe that someone is reading. In many cases that someone is a friend or family member in direct communication with the producer, and no further proof is needed. But in other cases, like when people blog about a hobby or a topic of professional interest, feedback isn’t necessarily forthcoming. Contextual advertising networks excel at giving people the rich feedback they crave, which is why so many people (like me) who don’t even run ads installed Google Analytics on their blogs. Click logs give people the warm fuzzies, and actual payments, even if only for a few cents a day, are proof positive that actual people are behind those clicks.

This is all conjecture, of course, and ought to be followed up on by a proper investigation of the emerging political economy of “amateur” production on the web, an investigation that moves well beyond Nardi et al’s investigations of blogging practices and takes participatory media seriously as a political, economic, social and cultural phenomenon. (Note to self: get on that…)

The Streaming Suitcase

In part this is an experiment in developing a model for the sustainable development of professional online documentation and manuals released under Creative Commons. So if you need a manual to be written on streaming and associated topics, and you have a commissioning budget then write to me and I will write one. This means you get a manual, I get some cash to support my nomadic artist life, and others benefit from having a nice manual too.

V-Fib: Free CC-licensed music compilations

V-fib Recordings offers free CC-licensed compilations of underexposed music, from both the past and present. The Winter 2006 mix features great tracks from bands like Koester, A Don Piper Situation, and Rank Strangers. Check it out!

Anti-credentialism and Technostalgia

Michel Bauwens:

I have long argued that the new P2P technologies and social processes reflect a deep shift in ways of feeling and being and in the constellation of values (in ontology, epistemology, axiology). Technostalgia then, could be called a state of opinion which wants to hold on to an earlier form of technology, corresponding to an earlier state of feeling/being/knowing.

There is an interesting debate about this in the Ghost in the Wire blog. I recommend to read both the main entry, and the ensuing debate with Michael Bujega, who wants to stabilize the internet as a knowledge exchange mechanism and is interpreted by the author of the blog as being in thrall of technostalgia. Michael is a reporter and is concerned that students have not ‘earned’ the new technologies and that they may abuse it, and that concerns with facts are disappearing, leading to the mere exchange of opinions. I’m really summarizing the feeling tone of the debate here, as the points are well argued by both parties. Nevertheless, though such efforts may bear some fruit, it seems to me they are ultimately doomed (in the sense that their effect will be marginal), as an attempt to enforce an earlier logic, where information was rather more scarce and thus could be managed qualitatively and otherwise, to an information explosion leading to a situation where there are eventually more authors than readers.

For a new development to be integrative, it has to include the qualities of earlier forms, but in the process, some things will get lost, to be replaced by new mechanisms.

To summarize current trends, we are moving from

1) macrocontent to microcontent and microlearning,

2) from individual learning theories to connectionism,

3) from hierarchichal categorization via decentralized multi-dimensional facetting to distributed tagging and folksonomies;

4) from institution-based credentialist peer review, to anti-credentialism and communal validation in truth-building;

5) from wholistic absolutism via objectivism to intersubjective aperspectivism and distributged collective intelligence in epistemological method.

These trends are not regressive, because the earlier standards of objectivity and fact-checking are still implied and supplied through communal validation. But supply becomes a function of self-selection, while the filtering is a posteriori. It is rather the method of fact gathering which changes from being decentralised through media, to being distributed through peers.
We cannot merely be content then, to safeguard the older quality-mechanisms, but need to invent totally new ones.

The new gatekeepers

Tristan Louis on The New Gatekeepers and group myopia.

"For all that is being said about the democratizing effect of the blogosphere, the truth is that systems of hierarchies that have existed for thousands of years still exist in the online world. It may be that humans are hard-wired for hierarchies and find an innate need to give more power to a certain amount of gatekeepers. "

mimoSa

Media Revolution

Having survived colonisation, dictatorships, and inflation of 2639%, Brazil entered the 21st century with nearly half of its population living in extreme poverty and its media tightly controlled by Rede Globo, one of the biggest conglomerates in the world. Enter mimoSa--an 'urban intervention and information correctional machine'--inspired by the belief that a new system of public broadcast is a means to achieve better distribution of power, representation, and visibility. Employing free and open source software, the machine facilitates the recording, uploading, and transmission of public stories. 'mimoSa' is now travelling throughout Brazil holding workshops at which people can build their own machine and take control of their own media. Telephone numbers and instructions are also painted on city walls and streets so that anyone can participate via their mobile phone. Created by Brazilian activists midiatactica.org, Canadian group Murmur, and individual artists and programmers, 'mimoSa' was commissioned by Turbulence.org in October 2005. Look out, Rede Globo! - Helen Varley Jamieson, Net Art News, Rhizome.

Inmates become amateur TV journalists in Italy jail

Inmates can be citizen reporters too, according to an article in New Kerala.

Since January, 11 amateur reporters who are all inmates in an Italian prison have been broadcasting a daily programme on the prison's closed-circuit television. They offer a press digest of national and foreign news, sport updates, information about life in jail, new laws and changes to the judicial system.

p their daily walk in the prison's courtyard to work on the news programme. They bought the lights and some of the equipment with their own money, and the rest was acquired thanks to a 1,500-euro (1,815 dollars) donation from the local town hall.

The inmates get their information from newspapers bought by the prison staff. A detainee who used to work as a tailor stitched together the curtains that darken the room when the programme is being recorded.

A Flashy New Adobe

BusinessWeek online will publish this article tomorrow describing the acquisition dealing a year ago between the CEOs of Adobe and Macromedia, and the meshing in the aftermath of the two digitally creative companies. The merger story is interesting and the integration plans between software promising. Vision beyond is sketched as well:

That's just using existing technology. Already a team of Adobe and Macromedia developers have started an innovative project to create a new version of Reader. Instead of just letting people view documents or fill out forms, it will run media-rich interactive Web applications thanks to the combination of Reader and Flash. The goal will be to install it on a majority of computers, just like Reader and Flash Player.

ng more revenue and profit out of the ubiquity of the two technologies. Plans are to build similar prevalence on phones and consumer devices. While deals have been announced with Nokia (NOK), Samsung, and LG, Adobe has also closed deals with all of the world's six largest handset makers. This quarter 66 million phones will have Flash up 50% over last quarter. If Chizen has his way, the new Adobe will find itself smack in the middle of every sexy trend from Web 2.0 to mobile content. Not bad for a company once criticized for not getting the Web.
Via FlashForward blog

It seems that the cable industry has once again become everyone's favorite public policy punching-bag. The "government-knows-best" crowd is practically foaming at the mouth about the need for "Net neutrality" mandates on cable's broadband offerings, censorship of speech on various cable channels or programs, and "a la carte" mandates for cable's video lineup.

On this last item, the FCC has just today released a revised version of an earlier staff report conducted during Chairman Michael Powell’s tenure. The Powell era FCC report revealed that a la carte would raise prices and hurt program diversity. By contrast, today's report, which new FCC Chairman Kevin Martin requested, argues that the old report got it completely wrong and that a la carte would lead to lower prices and not hurt diversity. So, within the span of 18 months, we have an expert regulatory agency coming to diametrically opposed conclusions on the same issue. (Makes you wonder about those old theories of scientific bureaucracy!) What are we to make of these contradictory results?

(Continued at The Technology Liberation Front)

Jay Fienberg invents the nanoformat

the iCite net - Nanoformats, now without a lot of explanation

It's great to see all of the work going into microformats. While it's good stuff, I honestly find microformats to embody a process way more formal than what excites me personally.

Jay is staking a claim to a modified version of the microformat concept. He wants to keep the idea of HTML-based data formats, but let go of the organizational and procedural ideas.

This seems to me like a constructive project -- let's explore everything about this space, not just the official parts.

One creative idea that Jay is bringing to the table is using HTML forms as a schema language to describe these new formats, which is a neat example of RESTful design. Sample code:

<form name="nanoformats" id="nanoformats" action="#">
      <input type="hidden" name="schemacount" value="2" />
      <input type="hidden" name="schema1" value="http://example.com/book-city" />
      <input type="hidden" name="elements1" value="title,author,city,image,quote" />
      <input type="hidden" name="attribute1-image" value="src" />
      <input type="hidden" name="count1" value="2" />
      
      <input type="hidden" name="schema2" value="http://example.com/webpage-author" />
      <input type="hidden" name="elements2" value="author,url" />
      <input type="hidden" name="attribute2-url" value="href" />

      <input type="hidden" name="alias2-author" value="creator" />
      <input type="hidden" name="count2" value="1" />
</form>

Micro-Mini Projector from Light Blue Optics

And we thought projectors were getting small when they were the size of a Mac mini! Light Blue Optics has created a micromini projector that's the size of—wait for it—a matchbox, and it’s going to be used with a cellphone. Its secret is new PVPro technology, an automechanical process that’s adept at scaling lower resolution images to higher resolutions. PVPro can also take care of pesky annoyances such as keystoning. These capabilities come in awfully handy when you're trying to project a video image onto a nearby wall with a cellphone.

Light Blue Optics is determined to make it easier for cellphone users to share photos with friends and comfortably watch movies on a screen that's considerably larger than a postage stamp. Pricing and availability haven't been announced, but the company will present a PVPro evaluation kit at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Micro Mini Projector for your Mobile Phone by Light Blue Optics [Mobile Whack]

Light Blue Optics product page

PVPro technology (pdf)

GPS Tagged Cell Photos

Merkitys is free, open-source software that gives a Nokia cell phone the capability of uploading photos to Flickr and automatically tagging them with location-specific metadata, notes Poynter.

If your phone supports GPS, it'll include the phone's GPS coordinates at the time the photo was taken. Even if your phone doesn't support GPS, Merkitys can include information about the local cell-phone network, which isn't as precise as GPS but still can identify location.

If your phone supports Bluetooth, Merkitys can tag your photos with the local Bluetooth environment -- IDs of nearby Bluetooth devices.

Poynter also has some tips on making photo maps (above) that place thumbnails of your photos on a map.

(Continued at Daily Wireless.)

Friday: New software for vloggers

The brilliant minds at Serious Magic have officially released Vlog It, a $49 piece of software that'll turn your computer into a TV station. These are the same folks who brought us the higher end "Visual Communicator" and that staple yesterday, Video Toaster (remember Garth's T-shirt from "Wayne's World?").

I predict this simple product will revolutionize Vlogs by making it easy for anybody to create real time production for television. Go to the Vlog It site and play the demo. You'll be absolutely amazed. I am, and I'm an old TV guy!

(Continued at The Pomo Blog)

Interactive TV Web

DVB Multimedia Home Platform tutorials and information for interactive TV developers
From the site that brought you the book (or was it the other way around): Interactive TV Standards

Web 2.0 Video APIs and Mash-ups

ProgrammableWeb: Tag Search

The future..?

Performing NAFTA with a transport truck and RFID

"The Exchange project is an artistic inquiry that uses cultural resistance to unsettle questionable relationships between international politics, technological surveillance, and identity construction. Specifically this project addresses:

1. The politics of trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

2. Myths of increased national security through technological surveillance of people and commodities

3. Identity construction based on collections of economic and surveillance data.

One outstanding feature of the Exchange project is a cross-border performance that combines Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) surveillance technology, a full-size transport truck, and all of Nisbet’s personal belongings. In this sustained performance, Nisbet’s things will be inventoried, radio frequency tagged and freely traded with individuals encountered during the six month trip that circumnavigates Canada, the United States and Mexico. This project exchanges the studio for the roads, truck stops, border crossings and cities of North America. 'Exchange' creates through the untidy weaving of politics, surveillance technology and identity construction. From the spaces between these coarse threads will emerge resistance, solidarity, vulnerability and moments of human connection."

looks like an intersting use of rfid...---[dp]

Originally posted by Anne from Purse Lip Square Jaw, ReBlogged by daniel perlin on Feb 9, 2006 at 04:32 PM

Rhizome.org: Rhizome Commissions Program

Originally posted by marisaolson from del.icio.us/tag/eyebeam-reblog, ReBlogged by daniel perlin on Feb 9, 2006 at 04:39 PM

Video Bomb

"Video Bomb filters up the hottest videos on the internet: people submit links to the 'Incoming!' page and you bomb the best ones. If a video gets a lot of bombs quickly, it makes it to the front page."

Podbasket

Via del.icio.us/tag/unmediated

One for the thumb! | Zacker.org

"I was born and raised in Pittsburgh Pa. I've been a fair weather fan but my sister Julia more than made up for me. Anyways, here is something interesting I've noticed in the coverage around the game:"

Server switches are fun! We'll be back online later today. -kc.

Installation: Tribute to Nam June Paik

Michael Parenti has created an installation piece for the exhibition "bensiz" ("without me") at address istanbul, titled "paiksiz" ("without paik"), in tribute to the death of video artist Nam June Paik. Pictures HERE.

The piece is comprised of an old macintosh g4 laptop in a plexiglass case, with an riff on paik's original installation piece, "ego machine" (1974). The desktop picture has the words "paik, paik paik....etc" as the original, with a few differences: the words are struck through, symbolizing paik's death, and static video snow has been added. The laptop is also running a 7 minute film in continuous loop, which is projected on a semi transparent curtain in the middle of the 35 meter long space. The film was created in grid pro, using original footage of paik in his coffin, which Todd Thille filmed at the memorial service on Saturday, February 4th, in New York City, This original footage is mixed with close up shots of fingers on a typewriter keyboard as if Paik's ego is still typing his name - even in death, and is seperated into the three channels of video color space - R, G, and B - symbolizing the color space which paik worked in, and is accompanied the song "Death is not the end" a cover version by the austrian band, "Der Scheitel". The surround soundsystem in the glass enclosed space was courteously provided by Bang & Olufsen

Teeny Tiny Hitachi RFID Chip: Big Whoop

Smaller than a grain of salt, Hitachi's newest RFID chip measures .005 x .005 inches and is 7.5 micrometers thin. Using Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology, it uses an external antenna to receive radio waves (2.45 GHz), and transforms it to energy to wirelessly transmit a 128-bit unique ID number for a high level of authenticity. But most importantly for Hitachi, it can make more of these chips on one single wafer, increasing production by four times.

Most importantly for you, expect to see more and more embedded RFID chips in nearly every product you purchase.

World's smallest and thinnest 0.15 x 0.15 mm, 7.5µm thick RFID IC chip [Hitachi]

Zoom And Go Features iPod Friendly Travel Reviews

Technorati Tags: iPod, Video

Proactive Desk II: Advanced Force Feedback

Proactive Desk II, developed by Shunsuke Yoshida, Haruo Noma and Kennichi Hosaka of ATR Media Information Science Labs, is a "digital desk with force feedback" that can simultaneously apply different forces on multiple physical objects on it.

[Proactive Desk II. Multiple users feeling the walls in a virtual maze.]

Its predecessor, Proactive Desk, enabled force feedback on a desk using two linear induction motors (LIM) -- it worked without using mechanical links or wires. However, Proactive Desk could only apply force on a single object on it.

By the way, Proactive Desk was used for a media art project called Suminagashi, a digital painting canvas with force feedback. "The user can enjoy the process of creating a picture not only with a visual sensation, such as colors, but also with a tactile sensation, such as the feeling of the drawing through the pen and the hands."

[12x12 Linear Induction Motor array.]

Proactive Desk II controls multiple physical objects on it using a 12x12 Linear Induction Motor (LIM) array that is connected to a PC through control boards. A camera mounted over the desk first detects positions of objects and then a computer controls multiple local magnetic fields on a desk. I think it's a quite technically challenging project and the system looks very elaborate and complex (despite my simplistic description.)

Related:
Kobito: "Magic" on Your Breakfast Table

How the telcos and cablecos plan to strangle the citizens' Internet

(Via CommonTimes)

Jeff Chester, who has been in the media analysis and activism field for some time, has written a chilling article for the Nation about the possible end of the Internet as a medium where amateurs and citizens are free to create news media, organize political action, start companies from their dormitory rooms:

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

Videos for Microsoft Mashups

If you’re interested in developing apps and mashups on top Microsoft web services you might want to check-out some new videos over at MSDN. The four videos up there now cover Start.com gadgets (Live.com), MSN Search APIs, MSN Search Toolbar, and Virtual Earth. And over in at MSDN TV there’s also a good video on Atlas, Microsoft’s Ajax framework. The overview is given by Nikhil Kothari, who created Virtual Places, the most popular mashup listed here.

PSP Universal Remote

I will declare this the second-best hack to come out of the PSP. First of which being emulators, of course. Massa84 over at PSP Updates has devised a way to turn the PSP into a universal remote. It does it by emulating lirc and the 1800+ remotes supported by lirc. Unfortunately, this hack only works with PSP firmware version 1.50. This could also provide some good hijinks in public. Good work, hax0rs.

PSP Universal Remote [PSP Updates]

SSE

It’s been a while since Ray Ozzie first posted on their Really Simple Sharing extension to RSS called SSE.

Like Dave - I was immediately struck with how this extension could be used for purposes OTHER than how Ray and Microsoft saw it.  MS sees SSE as the “RSS of synchronization.”  Dave sees it applicable to “replicating changes among OPML lists or outlines being managed within different services or by different people.” [as Ray describes it]

I’m still percolating on this - but I thought I’d spawn a meme on this - that SSE can be even more fundamental.  It could be a mechanism of connecting any node of an outline, document, service or application - to any other ‘node’.

By combining lists tgoether, resolving overlay redundancies and conflict and updating in near real-time - I’M PRETTY SURE - that SEE could be the glue we’ve been waiting for - to inter-connect content together, between disparate apps, servcies and networks.

This goes back to the limiting factors of HTML.  Everything is not a web page.

Hypelinking is coolio, media hyperlinking woild be even more coolio - but it still reaks of a ‘one-way’ connection.  Back BEFORE T B-L we often dreamed of linking things together - but it was always as a two-way connection.  Hard wiring the web into browsers was a nice way to kick start the web, but it lacks the power of two-way linking and synchronzing between sources which are changing.l

Ray Ozzie has spent the past 15 years doing groupware and it seems to me that SSE as a mechanism for synchronizing calendars and contact lists - is just the start.

This all leads me to ask “how does Chanlder do that?”

Anyway I’m far from having a conclusive design based upon SSE - but it’s definitely something we’d bake into our tools.

British Library: DRM lobotomizes "human memory"

In written evidence, the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (Laca) said there were "widespread concerns in the library, archive and information community" about the potentially harmful effects of DRMs.

"We have grave concerns about the potential use of DRMs by rightholders to override existing copyright exceptions," its statement said.

In the long term, the restrictions would not expire when a work went out of copyright, it said, and it may be impossible to trace the rights holders by that time.

"It is probable that no key would still exist to unlock the DRMs," Laca said. "For libraries this is serious.

"As custodians of human memory, a number would keep digital works in perpetuity and may need to be able to transfer them to other formats in order to preserve them and make the content fully accessible and usable once out of copyright."

'The deer now have guns'

In a new essay by Terry Heaton examining the fast-changing mediasphere, he quotes Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates, who likes to say, "The deer now have guns," referring to the fact that our audiences are now in a form of the media business themselves. Apt indeed.

McDonald's anti-advergame

Italian artists/activists Molleindustria is releasing a new anti-advergame (games that challenge players to rethink their relationship with consumption and encourage corporate critique as explained also in Diasaffected ), a business simulator to show the consequences of fast-food economics.

"Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all. Behind every sandwich is a complex process you must learn to manage: from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding. You'll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of the biggest company of the world."
Play the game online for free.

Reminds me of a book i read a couple of year ago: Fast Food Nation, i wasn't a fan of McDo's meals taste before but reading that book crushed any temptation i could have to orger a Big Mac or anything they serve there.

BIP - BUILDING INTERACTIVE PLAYGROUNDS

Do You Want to Play with Space, Time and People?

BIP - BUILDING INTERACTIVE PLAYGROUNDS--2nd edition – Elettrowave, July 14-16 2006 – Arezzo/Italy: We are currently accepting applications to participate in the second edition of BIP, an International Competition for interaction design projects for public events. BIP will happen during Elettrowave, a three day festival of electronic music. Elettrowave is part of Arezzowave, the biggest free music festival in Italy.

01 – WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR? If you want to play with space and time and people, if you like crossing barriers and probing around in extreme situations, if you fiddle around with the idea the space can be programmed, if you eat social patterns for your breakfast, if you are not scared by a drunk young audience, if you keep telling your friends that environments are not passive wrappings but active processes, if your perceptions keep shifting, if your projects are about interplay, exploration and humor, if tinkering with technology is your obsession...then... this call for works is your unique chance to experiment with interaction design within the context of an electronic music festival. Nightlife, extreme characters, clubbing freaks, a young, unrespectuful and challenging audience. You know what we are talking about, don’t you?

We are looking for projects. Not vague ideas. Real projects that can substantially and meaningfully enrich the Elettrowave event and strengthen involvement. Clubbing is the context, not the object, of BIP. We’re looking for something innovative, passionate and fresh that can make a difference.

Interactive installations, environments, sound and/or visual projects, etc.
If your project is at an early stage we will consider it only if you can prove you'll be able to produce it within the festival deadline. We may offer production assistance if we fall in love with your project proposal.

Please keep in mind that the projects should be able to stand 3 nights of extremely intense use, in a venue with thousands of people. Please consider production feasibility and all possible setup constraints.

02 – WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
Participation is open to applicants from every country in the world, to (interaction) designers, artists, researchers, architects, students. Participation is free.

03 – SUBMISSION DEADLINE
All project proposals must be postmarked by March 10th, 2006.
Late entries will not be accepted. By submitting a project, the applicant warrants that it is his/her original design.

04 – HOW AND WHEN ARE THE PROJECTS SELECTED?
In March 2006, a panel of jurors will select up to 3 projects.
Winners will be announced during a workshop/event in April. The event will be hosted by Università di Siena, Italy.

05 – AWARDS
Selected projects will be installed for the three nights of Elettrowave 2006. This is a precious opportunity to test your interactive projects in the context of an electronic music festival.

The projects will benefit from a total budget of 10.000 euros offered by BIP. The budget will be divided between the selected projects according to production, transportation and setup costs. BIP will consider supporting production costs of new projects that are being presented to the public for the first time.

Commonly used technology (videoprojectors, screens, audio systems, monitors, mixers, etc.) will be available to the selected projects if required.

06 – HOW MANY PROJECTS CAN I SUBMIT?
Only one project may be submitted per entrant. Teams register with one name only.

07 – SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
The submission form is available for download at http://www.todo.to.it/bip/bip_submission2006.pdf
Please fill out all the information required in the form. Send your submission to:
TODO - BIP 2006
c/o Mail Boxes Etc.
Box 294, Via Boucheron 16
10122 - Torino - Italy

Submissions which do not conform to the rules will be rejected without any notice. There is no legal recourse against this decision.

Submitted material will become part of the festival archives and will not be returned.

08 – ACCURACY AND COPYRIGHT
Any moral and paternity right regarding the project sent in for application is designer’s property.

By participating, you grant BIP the right to edit, publish, promote and otherwise use the entry without further permission, notice or compensation. Credit information may need to be condensed or edited for space.

BIP assumes that all entries are original and are the work and property of the entrant, with all rights granted there-in. BIP is not liable for violations of any third party rights, including, but not limited to, claims of copyright, trademark, patent infringment. BIP assumes that all images provided with entries are free of any third-party rights. BIP will include photographer credits if that information is provided along with the images.

09 – MORE QUESTIONS?
Send inquiries to bip[at]arezzowave.com with "BIP – Call for Works" as the subject line.

10 – ORGANIZATION
BIP is promoted by FAWI (Fondazione Arezzowave Italia) and ARSNOVA.
BIP is realized in partnership with the Università di Siena
The BIP project is managed by TODO interaction design studio.

System for Multiple Compositions on a Theme

Co-Authors/Users, Separated/Distributed, Across Space/Places

System for Multiple Compositions on a Theme--by Garrett Lynch--is a series of videos shot and edited on analog equipment in 1995 for the sole purpose of experimenting with editing video to create audio compositions. Rather than the norm of composing a video, the image, into a sequence, here the audio was composed and the accompanying image became incidental, secondary. The re-presentation of the video experiments on the internet not alone document and expose them to a wider audience than the original analog cassettes but also serves as a means to progress the early video experiments as a website experiment.

The network provides a means to reconfigure the way the work is viewed by changing the artist's (sole author of the art work) relationship with his audience. The artist, rather than defining a narrative, defines a framework for the art to work within. Experimentation with methods of sending, retrieving and presenting information on the internet, such as the use of html forms and server side scripting allows him to this time construct a system for controlling / viewing the art work rather than an art work that is simply to be viewed. The spectacle of cinema and its audience is replaced by individual user's, separated and distributed across many spaces / places, each as co-author's / contributor's with the artist to their viewing and interpretation of his work.

The composition creation interface on the website, allows users to actively participate in the composition of the experiments and experience an approximation of the act of originally editing these experiments by the artist. It consists of a grid of nine positions, three across and three down, where any position on the grid can be occupied by any of the nine videos any number of times. This gives a possible 2318107019760 combinations, where...

18 + 182 + 183 + 184 + 185 + 186 + 187 + 188 = 2318107019760

Videos can be given a parameter to loop, loop back and forth (palindrome) or not loop. Lag, download speed on the internet, as well as video duration is used as a means to offset how the videos will sound / display within the website creating an overlap that is never quite the same.

Reviewed in neural by Valentina Culatti:

The combines, from Duchamp to Raushenberg, have always been an inspirational form of expression for audio visual digital art. However the word 'composition' has different meanings: it is the combining of distinct parts or elements to form a whole; it is the art or act of composing a musical or literary work; it is also a synonym of short essay. With 'System for Multiple Compositions on a Theme' Garrett Lynch (aka asquare.org) tries to synthesize all these meanings in one project. The artwork is a series of videos shot and edited on analog equipment in 1995 for the sole purpose of experimenting with editing video to create audio compositions. After ten years the shot material has been re-presented on the web using an interface that allow users to take part in the composition choosing among 9x9 options for combining the available clips. Repetition and dislocation, made easy by javascript, are the tools to experiment non linear narration and author-users interaction. However video leads audio on the web. And this is a weak point of the project because keeping an inverted relation would have been an original element in an artwork that, even if inspired by artists like Peter Horvath or Christan Marclay, doesn't have the same innovative value.

Open Source Flash Communications Server in the works

Flash Ant: Flash and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) Blog . :: Echo, echo, echo... I think I hear Open Source Flash Communication Server!
Reblogged:
What is Red5, you ask? It's a project on OSFlash that aims to create an Open Source Flash Communication Server. The speed at which the project is progressing is quite astounding. An Open Source Flash Communication Server alternative appears to be mere months away

more at osflash.org/red5

Fiber Scam?

For the last decade, those same telcos have made promise after promise to local governments concerning the delivery of truly open fiber optic connections to the home. In exchange, they've been granted all sorts of privileges and rate increases by the government, costing all of us money. And where did the money go? Not towards what was promised.

This is a promise that they have not kept... though, they have kept our money. In fact, after all of these promises, remember that the telcos said they wouldn't offer fiber at all, unless the FCC promised not to require them to let others offer services on it.

In 2006 and beyond, I view there are only two viable courses of action that can guide the US to a broadband future equivalent to what other countries are enjoying now.

1) Get legislators behind a movement to prohibit content discrimination (I'm using this phrase loosely and imprecisely) on telco and cableco networks.

2) Encourage, in all manner, the construction of alternative methods of broadband delivery - more spectrum, including license-exempt, allow water companies or any other entities to carry Internet, repeal stupid laws that restrict government entities to build alternative broadband networks, etc.

That's it.

DailyTech - Wikipedia Now Blocking US Congress From Making Edits

serves em right