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Sunday, January 22, 2006 |
The future of viral radio.
Ma Bell must be soiling her knickers over schemes like Fluid Voice from MIT Media Lab (as if Skype wasn't bad enough). The idea is that if you put enough viral radio-enabled cellphones in, say, a city they will, by themselves, create their own cellphone network. Practically, in cases such as Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake in Pakistan and India, lives might have been saved with such an instant communications infrastructure. As part of the radio show we did during CES in Las Vegas, we talked with Kwan Lee of MIT about the future of viral radios. LISTEN MP3
"China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) conducted a survey on China' s Internet development and issued a report,the 17th of its kind on Tuesday,"the People's Daily reports."The survey has found that China ranks the second in the world in terms of the number of netizens and those surfing on the Internet through broadband which is the main access to Internet for Chinese netizens.The Chinese mainland has the world third largest number of IP addresses".The Internet "is more popular among well-educated young males who make good money than in any other groups.9.7 percent of males log on line while 7.3 percent of females do.28.6 percent of the younger generation between 18 to 24 years old,which accounts for 10 percent of the nation's total,surf on the Internet".It also found a "considerable gap between urban and rural areas in Internet spread-out.The 19.3 million rural netizens represents 2.6 percent of the rural population while 16.9 percent of urban residents,or nearly 92 million,are Internet users.The similar gap can also be seen between the east and the mid-west.13 percent of Chinese living in the east use Internet,which doubles the figure in the mid-west.Chinese netizens spend 15.9 hours a week on average,an increase by 2.7 hours year-on-year.Experts view that as an main trend that the Internet has an increasing influence on people's daily life".
When 111 million people gather online
This Pew Internet and American Life report says "Internet users ages 12-28 are more likely to IM,play online games,and create blogs.Internet users over age 28 (but younger than 70) are more likely to make travel reservations and bank online.All age cohorts of internet users (ages 12 and older) are equally likely to use email;about 90% of all internet users send or receive email.Given the many other variations in internet use among different age groups,it is notable that this basic communications tool is almost universally used.Even teens,many of whom disparage email as something for “old people,”and tend to prefer instant messaging,have not completely abandoned it.Email is the most popular online activity,especially for internet users age 65 or older".Further,"teens and generation Y(age 18-28) are significantly more likely than older users to send and receive instant messages,play online games,create blogs,download music,and search for school information.An always-on,high-speed connection at home enables some of these activities for young internet users,but broadband access is not the whole story.Internet users in their 30s are about as likely as users in their 20s to have broadband at home and yet do not match the younger users in their enthusiasm for games and IM".
Reports:Demographics
[Smart Mobs]
7:33:21 PM 
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Susan Crawford on the self-owned Internet.
The ever-astute Susan Crawford continues to blog about the self-owned Internet, and the bogus claims by telcos and cablecos that since they own the pipes, they own the Net:
The telephone companies claim that they own "the network," because they built it. But "the internet," as it is understood by the public, is owned by no one. Indeed, the internet arguably owns itself and has value of its own that is entirely independent of the identity of its access valves. This value is being captured daily by the "owners" of the internet--everyone. Over the last ten years, a wholly decentralized and global investment of time, money, and gifts created the internet, without any need for specific incentives provided by government (after the initial U.S. development projects had run their course).
So the internet is not only unowned, but it also has a liveliness and liberty of its own that is highly beneficial to mankind and requires protection. The role of government should be to prohibit any form of ownership (or other action) that unreasonably interferes with the openness of and access to and responsible use of this commons by the collective group.
We can start from the premise that there is a strong public interest (evidenced by Bush Administration as well as Clinton Administration comments) in having high-speed, unfettered internet access be available as widely as possible. We can graciously accept that there is a general public interest in protecting property and compensating property owners. But we can regard access to the commons of the self-owned internet as a more important public interest than protecting the private property of the telecom companies.
[Smart Mobs]
"The Internet" can't be owned by the telcos, et alia, since we know that we do comm via CPIP, as has been duly documented.
17packet one attached A packet on a pigeon leg.  19pigeon takeoff
2:19:54 PM
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Great Experiment Round-Up.
It's depressingly typical of my life that we would get BoingBoing-ed on a weekend when I'm visiting the in-laws...
I've gotten a bunch of responses to my earlier request for "Great Experiments" in other areas of science, and I thought I'd collect the links in one post (many of them show up as TrackBacks to the original post, but some don't):
(If I've missed any, or other posts have been made since I last checked, let me know, and I'll update the list...)
Thanks to all the bloggers who responded. It's flattering to have such an off-hand request taken seriously. (Requests for things I ought to post are, of course, welcome in return...) There's lots of interesting material in those posts, and they'll provide plenty of reading the next time I'm looking for cat-vacuuming activities.
As for the Great Experiments in Physics post that kicked this off, I've collected a good number of comments, and plan to do some short(ish) posts explaining the most popular choices, once I'm back home with access to a browser that isn't IE, and a keyboard that doesn't suck.
[Uncertain Principles]
11:25:56 AM
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How Cell Phones Roil Japan's Stocks.
In a must-read article in Business Week, journalists Kenji Hall and Ian Rowley describe how the accelaration of the Japanese market plunge on January 18 can be attributed to cell phones.
"As the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average nosedived this week, plenty of ordinary Japanese investors were shedding shares as fast as the professional brokerage traders. ... Many of those tech-savvy investors in their 30s and 40s were placing sell orders with the flick of a button on a clamshell cell phone with a speedy wireless connection.
... In November, the value of trades made via mobile phones by three of Japan's major online brokers hit 1 trillion yen ($8.7 billion) for the first time, a rise of 90% over the year before
[Smart Mobs]
11:25:19 AM
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Virtual Complementary Currencies.
 The real world/online game world mash-up continues.
The possibility of the government taxing the money you "earn" in online games (through killing dragons or whatnot) became much greater this week, as Second Life Boutique -- an online store that generally sells virtual world goodies for Second Life characters -- began to sell real world objects for Lindens, Second Life's in-game currency. The first item for sale, a video card, runs L$20,000, or about US$80 at the current L$250=US$1 conversion. In many respects, this is hardly a surprising development; after all, people can sell virtual objects for real money, why not the other way around?
The difference -- and why I began with a reference to the Internal Revenue Service -- is that what Second Life is doing by allowing this is setting up a complementary currency, one outside of the regulations and control of the formal financial system.
They're hardly the first ones to do so. We've posted in the past about the use of local currencies as tools for community empowerment, as well as about the use of transferrable mobile phone minutes as currency in Kenya. At the moment, the use of the Linden as a means to buy real world products bears more of a resemblance to the Kenyan phone currency than to a fully-fleshed-out complementary currency. That is to say, the purpose of the Linden was to facilitate an exchange within the closed system of Second Life; its use as an external currency was an example of the William Gibson dictum that "the street finds its own use for things."
I wonder, though, what it would look like if the Linden was instead thought of as a true complementary currency. There are dozens of alternative currencies in use around the world, and information sites like Appropriate Economics provide myriad case studies of how these currencies work. As far as I could tell, however, present-day complementary currencies with broad purchasing power exist only as physical money; the virtual currencies are all limited-scope exchange media, similar to frequent flier miles or grocery store buyer's points. If the Linden were to be structured as a real complementary currency that's only manifest as virtual money, it would be unique, or nearly so.
I'm quite honestly unsure of what the implications of this would be. It would certainly be a complex situation. How would Second Life deal with attempts to "launder" money using Lindens? Would the IRS (or taxation agencies in the other countries where Second Life is played) be interested? Right now, membership in Second Life is necessary for the payment in Lindens to take place, but what happens when someone without a Second Life account claims to have been paid in Lindens and wants access to the money? What would Second Life need to do to make its role as a "central bank" a key responsibility?
Of course, one item offered for sale does not a transformation make. It could be that this ends up little more than a stunt, or that the level of interest from Second Lifers is minimal at best. But this is yet another sign that virtual worlds are becoming ever more entangled with the real world in meaningful and hard-to-reverse ways.
[WorldChanging: Another World Is Here]
11:24:44 AM
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HOWTO anonymize your search history.
Cory Doctorow: If you're worried about the Federal government getting your search-history out of Google, Yahoo and other search-engines, there are steps you can take to keep your personal search-history private.
Last week, it was revealed that Google had rebuffed a Federal demand for its customers' search-histories, while other search engines may not have been so protective of their customers' privacy.
Wired News has published a collection of simple steps you can take to prevent your search-history from being associated with your identity at Google and other search engines. With all the expanded, secret snoop powers that the Feds have gotten under PATRIOT and other unconstitutional laws, it only makes sense to take precautions to keep yourself from being Tuttle-Buttled by an indiscriminate dragnet.
What's the first thing people should do who worry about their search history?
Cookie management helps. Those who want to avoid a permanent record should delete their cookies at least once a week. Other options might be to obliterate certain cookies when a browser is closed and avoid logging in to other services, such as web mail, offered by a search engine.
How do you do that with your browser?
In Firefox, you can go into the privacy preference dialog and open Cookies. From there you can remove your search engine cookies and click the box that says: "Don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies."
In Safari, try the free and versatile PithHelmet plug-in. You can let some cookies in temporarily, decide that some can last longer or prohibit some sites, including third-party advertisers, from setting cookies at all.
While Internet Explorer's tools are not quite as flexible, you can manage your cookies through the Tools menu by following these instructions.
Link
[Boing Boing]
11:24:37 AM
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19pigeon takeoff 