Julian is doing his best to put me and my FISA writing to shame by digging into National Security Investigations & Prosecutions, an in-depth treatment of surveillance law.
A couple of scientists demonstrating voiceless communication. There’s a band around one chap’s neck that reads his brain waves. At present it has a vocabulary of about 150 words…
Wander down the street, wonder “where is the nearest restaurant?”, and hear the answer in your brain…?
I admit I’ve gotten so jaded by inventions (especially those in their early stages) that I can’t really get myself to react even over this one. But I did think it was worth noting. It has the potential to evolve into something that challenges concepts of privacy and property and calls for new ones. Rules on what others may feed into your brain, the default settings of commercial products that read in and out; whether such a device may ever be used against one’s will; the reliability of testimony based on on data read off of such a device.
Which is interesting, because at one time I would have thought that there really could not be new rules and basic rights, or ought not to be. One was pretty much stuck with whatever had evolved in a state of nature–for anything new like this, it would be a rule-less environment, a war of technology against technology. Want to keep someone out? Physically block it with your own tech… and so on.
But that sort of limitation on our rules of the game won’t do; it is far too limiting and arbitrarily so. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean anything goes. Difficult territory.
Can technology really help liberate repressed populations? I’d like to think so, although there are times when I’ve had my doubts. When it comes to speech controls and political repression, the David-vs-Goliath / cat-and-mouse interplay of citizens versus the State is an intriguing thing to study. I talked about how “technologies of freedom” are helping to slowly liberate citizens in some countries, and here’s a new story today from VOA about China struggling to cope with criticism before the Olympics.
The Washington Post’s outstanding columnist Anne Applebaum also has a piece today along these lines that discusses what’s happening in Tibet right now. She notes:
Cellphone photographs and videos from Tibet, blurry and amateurish, are circulating on the Internet. Some show clouds of tear gas; others, burning buildings and shops; still others, monks in purple robes, riot police and confusion. Watching them, it is impossible not to remember the cellphone videos and photographs sent out from burning Rangoon only six months ago. Last year Burma, this year Tibet. Next year, will YouTube feature shops burning in Xinjiang, home of China’s Uighur minority? Or riot police rounding up refugees along the Chinese-North Korean border? That covert cellphones have become the most important means of transmitting news from certain parts of East Asia is no accident….
By Drew Clark
Here’s a maxim for Supreme Court watchers: the high court likes to be entertained.
The justices’ decision to take the Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations case means that the court will finally hear a case pitting broadcast-style indecency regulation against the more recent rulings that the First Amendment forbids restrictions on the Internet and cable television.
The tension between the rules governing broadcasting and the rules governing cable television and the Internet has become extreme. The FCC has been vigorously enforcing broadcast indecency over the past five years — at the very time in which technological developments are making the broadcast versus Internet distinction meaningless.
Some First Amendment observers believe that the FCC v. Fox case could result in a decision overturning the entire framework of broadcast indecency.
Although the Supreme Court could rule more narrowly, the fact that it took the case may signal that the justices are finally ready to square what appears to be the single most glaring inconsistency in First Amendment jurisprudence.
Communications Daily reports that USTelecom has now rebranded itself as “The Broadband Association” (although apparently keeping the formal name USTelecom) . The group’s president, Walter McCormack, explained that the branding shift is simply “calling it what it is.” “The future of communications is in broadband”, he added.
The move is but the latest in a long series of name — and mission — changes for the group, which until the mid-1980s was known as the “US Independent Telephone Association,” and represented non-Bell System telephone providers.
USTelecom’s move mirrors a similar rebranding by CTIA — which was at various times the “Cellular Telephone Industry Association,” the “Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association,” and the “Cellular Telecommunications and Information Association.” Finally, a few years ago they decided it was all spinach, and started just calling themselves CTIA – The Wireless Association.
I realized it might make sense to have a single meta-link for all the installments in my ongoing “Media Metrics” series, so this will be it. To reiterate, the goal of the Media Metrics series is to paint the most thorough and objective portrait of the true state of the modern media marketplace using evidence, not emotion. Too often, media debates get caught up in rhetorical skirmishes based upon the way people “feel” about media. In this series, by contrast, I hope to replace feelings with facts and provide an objective assessment of where we stand today. My PFF colleague Grant Eskelsen are also in the process of compiling all of this material into a single database / report that we plan on making available shortly to policymakers, the press, and the public to use as a resource. Here are the online installments I have already posted:
#1: Introduction & Analytical Framework (1/16/08) #2: Household Access to Media Services & Technologies (1/17/08) #3: Ad Wars [a look at advertising competition & substitution] (1/20/08) #4: Changing Fortunes [market capitalization comparisons] (1/29/08) #5: The Competition for our Ears (2/1/08) #6: The Video Revolution (3/2/08) #7: An Uncertain Future for Newspapers (3/5/08)
[… up next… a report on the magazine market.]
Diane Mermigas, the editor-at-large of MediaPost and one of the most consistently insightful media analysts in America, has this sobering assessment of the predicament most traditional media operators find themselves in today:
Media companies, like many industries, are placing bets on new technology and business models while their traditional business models are deteriorating. They are increasingly resorting to a variety of new metrics and formulas to track their return on investment. The complexities of tracking traditional revenues under siege and emerging revenues not yet steadied will pose financial accountability problems that will become increasingly evident. Add to that heavy investing in digital infrastructure and the carryover (for some) of costly, increasingly ineffective legacy operations, and media has its own lethal financial squeeze in the making. No way will new digital revenues ramp to replace traditional revenues as rapidly as they are deteriorating. A weakening economy has made advertisers and consumers more conservative about spending money.
Not a pretty picture. I highlight many of these trends in my ongoing Media Metrics series.
Don’t take your eye off the ball, people. The FTC’s assessment of $2.9 million against ValueClick does not mean that CAN-SPAM is working. The Inbox at Privacilla.org has about 25,000 spam messages in it – because Rackspace’s hosted email product has such ineffectual anti-spam technology. Oh, and because CAN-SPAM, which was supposed to “can” spam – meaning “end it” – didn’t.
Over at Techdirt (and here on TLF), Tim Lee takes issue with my post suggesting that Wikipedia should consider selling ads instead of asking for donations. He has a good point, which is that right now the only reason to volunteer to work for Wikipedia is because you’re passionate about it, but that might change if money became involved. But I think Tim overstates his case:
Being a member of the Wikipedia board would no longer be a thankless exercise in public service, but would be a relatively glamorous opportunity to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to one’s pet causes. Over time, the senior leadership positions would be sought out by people who are more excited about doling out largesse than editing an encyclopedia.
I’m not sure why that would be the case. By that rationale we could never have large philanthropic foundations because they would attract self-interested directors. As long as their actions are transparent and they are accountable to the wikipedians, I don’t see why the money couldn’t be directed for the benefit of Wikipedia. And if the directors enjoy some vicarious “glamour” as a result, then I think that’s a fine reward for hard work—it might even attract better candidates than are interested today.
Since it’s Sunshine Week I’ll stress that the key is transparency. And Tim is right on this point, too: institutions matter. Right now Jimmy Wales is taking some heat for conducting his Wikipedia business in a less than transparent manner. If that’s how Wkipedia is going to operate, them perhaps money will corrupt it and Tim is right that “there’s no reason to think an institution built to edit an encyclopedia is going to have any special competence to oversee the spending of millions of dollars.” Still, I guess I’m just more optimistic about what the Wikipedia community is capable of.
P.S. Yeah, I love Twitter! Check me out at twitter.com/jerrybrito.
Over at the popular gaming site 1up.com, a gentleman who worked briefly for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has posted a provocative article entitled, “How to Fix the Game Ratings System: An insider’s take on what’s wrong with the ESRB.” In the piece, Jerry Bonner, who worked at the ESRB for 6 months according to GamePolitics.com, argues that “Something desperately needs to happen [to reform the ESRB] because the alternative — a government mandated and controlled rating scheme — is a downright frightening concept.” He continues:
“let’s fix [the ESRB ratings process] before things really get out of hand and a new government-appointed ‘Secretary of Interactive Entertainment’ is making the decisions as to what we can and can’t play. I know I don’t want that. I know you don’t want that. And I know that the people at the ESRB don’t want that. Let’s all make damn sure it doesn’t happen, shall we?”
Well, I can certainly agree with Mr. Bonner that a “Secretary of Interactive Entertainment,” or any sort of extensive government regulation of video games, is a very frightening prospect. The problem is, the “solutions” he outlines in his essay could actual put us on that path.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.