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Thursday, January 09, 2003 |
Update on Dave:
It's true, it's true. I've been offered a fellowship at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and have, of course, accepted. It's a very exciting opportunity. Check out this section of yesterday's DaveNet for an idea of what we're going to work on. And of course over the coming weeks and months I'll write more. I'm going to spend a lot of time in Cambridge this year. Totally looking forward. Onward! [Scripting News]
6:06:37 PM 
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A Benton headline:
ONLINE HISTORICAL GAME HELPS STUDENTS DISCOVER CONTEMPORARY
VOICES
OnRamp Arts, a community arts organization in Los Angeles, has launched a
free online game that explores 500 years of Latin American history. Tropical
America ( www.tropicalamerica.com ), conceptualized by Los Angeles high school
students and artists, explores a rich and painful past unknown to the
children of those immigrant families who left the region. Twenty-five Latino
students spent two years learning to design the online game. In the process,
they unearthed their Latin American roots and embarked on their own
discovery of the Americas.
[SOURCE:
Digital Divide Network, AUTHOR: Victoria Bernal]
3:27:18 PM
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The Lexmark
complaint against Static Control (maker of the Smartek chip at issue).
(pdf)
OEM
Warfare, by Static Control CEO Ed Swartz.
2:27:18 PM
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Boucher
Introduces
Fair Use Rights Bill, by Roy Mark, InternetNews.com.
In its 1983 Betamax decision, the Supreme Court established the
rights of consumers to make copies of legally purchased copyrighted
material for the purpose of "fair use," such as making personal backup
copies or multiple copies for different media devices. The 1998 DMCA,
however, which was enacted with the enthusiastic support of motion picture
studios, the recording industry, and book publishers, makes it illegal to
make copies of any digitally-recorded material for any purpose.
The DMCA also prohibits the manufacture, distribution or sale of technology
which enables circumvention of protection measures.
Boucher's bill would limit the scope of the prohibition to circumvention
for the purpose of copyright infringement. Circumvention for the purpose of
exercising fair use rights would be permitted under the legislation. The
legislation would also permit the making and distribution of hardware and
software if the technology is capable of substantial non- infringing use.
2:27:13 PM
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Bruce Sterling explains it all to you at The Well's Inkwell section.
Bruce Sterling is a science fiction writer and more - he's also known for his work as a journalist, public speaker, pop entertainer, and futurist. Bruce, a longtime denizen of the WELL, takes some time from his packed schedule at the first of each year to discuss the state of the world and his vision of the future. This year's visit happens to coincide with the release of his latest book, Tomorrow Now, a consideration of the next fifty years using a framework loosely derived from Shakespeare's "seven ages of man": - the infant, the student, the lover, the soldier, the justice, the pantaloon and "mere oblivion" (death). Here's how Bruce relates those seven ages to technology-focused speculations about the future:
"Stage One: The Infant concerns genetics, reproduction, and microbiology. Stage Two: The Student is about information networks and new paradigms for the scholar. Stage Three: The Lover takes its cue from _Pygmalion_; it is about postindustrial design and our fiercely passionate relationship to our own creations. Stage Four: The Soldier is a war story about the growing New World Disorder, the new century's greatest security threat. Stage Five: The Justice tackles media and politics. Stage Six: The Pantaloon is a primer on twenty-first century information economics. Stage Seven: Mere Oblivion is about our struggle with morality and our assault on human limits." Jon Lebkowsky leads the conversation. The books is Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years.
2:27:09 PM
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Unions: Publish
snooping code of practice, by Graham Hayday, silicon.com.
Union chiefs in the UK are today urging the new information
commissioner to resist employer lobbying and publish the delayed code of
practice on the monitoring of staff email and Internet use.
12:26:50 PM
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Who Had
the Worst User Experience? By Jack Aaronson, Clickz.
Let me offer three examples of companies that failed to deliver
a good user experience during the holiday season. They failed through a
lack of the basic abilities to do thorough design, implementation, quality
assurance, and intradepartment communication.
11:27:04 AM
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EXCLUSIVE
EXCERPT: The only excerpt anywhere of The Right Man, the
controversial new White House insider’s assessment of America’s 43rd
president, by former speechwriter David Frum. At The Hill.
Anyone have more to say about this? A brief search turned up no links to it.
11:26:57 AM
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Well, that's an interesting approach:
Lexmark invokes DMCA in
toner suit, by Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com.
In a 17-page complaint filed on Dec. 30, 2002, the company
claims the Smartek chip mimics the authentication sequence used by Lexmark
chips and unlawfully tricks the printer into accepting an aftermarket
cartridge. That circumvents the technological measure that controls
access to the Toner Loading Program and the Printer Engine Program, the
complaint says. The Toner Loading Program checks toner levels in the
cartridge, and the Printer Engine Program controls operations such as paper
feed and the actual transfer of the dry ink to paper.
Hearing today.
11:26:51 AM
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Update at the Tehran-Virginia
Teen Blog.
Still have the ring, Kathy?
11:26:45 AM
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Bitter brew? Lloyd Grove reports, in The Washington Post: For the past couple of weeks, those wags at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle have been marketing a beverage called the "Trent Lotte." The menu describes the $3.25 item as "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk" – a not too veiled reference to Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's career-damaging 100th-birthday praise of fellow Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential campaign. Yesterday bartender Mark Kutcher told us that the coffee and steamed milk are served in two different containers, and it's up to customers to integrate them. "We think it's really funny," Kutcher said. "That's why we do it." But we seriously doubt if Lott is laughing. Our call to the deposed Senate Republican leader's press office yesterday was greeted by grim silence.
7:08:24 AM
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In-Room
Chat as a Social Tool, by Clay Shirky.
This fall, I hosted a two-day brainstorming session for 30 or
so people on the subject of social software. The event, sponsored by
Cap-Gemini's Center for Business Innovation and Nokia's Insight and
Foresight unit, took place in an open loft, and in addition to the usual
"sit around a big table and talk to each other" format, we set up an
in-room chat channel accessible over the WiFi network. We hosted the chat
using Greg Elin's modifications to Manuel Kiessling's lovely ARSC (A Really
Simple Chat) software. (Greg and I had used a similar setup in a somewhat
different setting, and we were determined to experiment further at the
social software event.)
The in-room chat created a two- channel experience -- a live conversation
in the room, and an overlapping real-time text conversation. The experiment
was a strong net positive for the group. Most social software is designed
as a replacement for face-to-face meetings, but the spread of permanet
(connectivity like air) provides opportunities for social software to be
used by groups who are already gathered in the same location. For us, the
chat served as a kind of social whiteboard. In this note, I want to detail
what worked and why, what the limitations and downsides of in-room chat
were, and point out possible future avenues for exploration.
3:46:35 AM
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