January 2010
13 posts
jet plane emotions; ipad cycles →
Written by the ever reliable Danny O’Brien:
“Of course, the iPad (sorry, just “iPad”) is different because of the lockdown. Even if we had the resources to write something for it, we can’t without Apple’s whim. But I remain confident that the same forces that wash away proprietariness in general purpose computers in the past will eat away at the iPad. Maybe it will be like Windows,...
Privacy, Facebook and the Future of the Internet →
“Is it naive to think that things you post on the internet are really “private?” Many people say it is, but that was core to the value proposition that Facebook grew up on.”
Guardian editor hits back at paywalls →
“If you erect a universal pay wall around your content then it follows you are turning away from a world of openly shared content. Again, there may be sound business reasons for doing this, but editorially it is about the most fundamental statement anyone could make about how newspapers see themselves in relation to the newly-shaped world.”
Can we build a world with open source? →
Guardian piece from 5 March 2009, with some hardware examples
Logs don't lie: Which tech execs have the White... →
“Who has the ear of the White House when it comes to tech issues?”
“This look inside the White House comes courtesy of the Obama administration, which (eventually) released its visitor logs to the public after public pressure from good government groups. The Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency in government, has done a nice job of making the raw data accessible and...
Why Facebook is Wrong: Privacy Is Still Important →
“Consider this comment left by one of our readers in response to Zuckerberg’s statement.”
“As a person who is being stalked for being an innocent bystander in a child custody case, I can tell you that losing my choices over what is searchable or not is huge. I have nothing to hide nor be ashamed of but the loss of choice for my privacy has hit home in a poignant...
Boris Johnson to launch London 'Datastore' with... →
“The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, will on Thursday launch a website hosting hundreds of sets of data - including previously unreleased information - about the capital, as part of a new scheme intended to encourage people to create “mashups” of data to boost the city’s transparency and accountability.”
Conversations About the Internet #5: Anonymous... →
This interview might not be genuine. But it is plausible…
The Age of Privacy is Over???? →
“According to (Zuckerberg) the age of Privacy is Over. This is the quote that is just STUNNING”
“we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it”
“He could have said “I decided” and he as the CEO of a social network has the power to “decide” the fate of the privately shared amongst friends in the context of this particular social network...
Making Money by Giving Stuff Away →
“I’d just like to emphasise that these open source companies have all found ways of making money by giving away stuff.”
“Generally speaking, this has been achieved by accepting that the software they produce is abundant, and therefore cannot be charged for directly, but noting that there are associated products and services that are scarce, and can therefore support a...
The one thing that Google Nexus One has over the... →
“The biggest difference between the two is that Google has decided to open up the mobile market, where Apple has created a closed ecology. There are good reasons for both strategies…”
Rethinking Web Logins With OpenID Connect →
“Consider OpenID in the shadow of Facebook Connect, its far more successful competitor based on Facebook’s proprietary platform. Forget that Facebook is much more widely known than OpenID — the real problem is that Facebook Connect is attached to an actual thing you can log in to, a website you can visit, a company you’ve heard of.”
“OpenID, on the other hand, is more nebulous....
The BBC's digital rights plans will wreak havoc on... →
“Free/open source software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system that runs many set-top boxes, is created cooperatively among many programmers (thousands, in some cases). Unlike proprietary software, such as the Windows operating system or the iPhone’s operating system, free software authors publish their code and allow any other programmer to examine it, make improvements to it, and...