Thoughts on the social impacts of information and communication technology policy.
I just created my first podcast (for work) which includes a presentation I did on blogging technology. Check it out, and subscribe to hear future sessions (which I’m involved in, but not presenting).
Turns out all that business about IM and e-mail distractions lowering your IQ wasn’t quite right after all. Might be true, since I remembered blogging about it in the first place.
(it looks like Blogger’s “Blog This” doesn’t include the link in Safari…sorry it’s gone)
Here’s a good read about the increasingly important role of Google on the Internet (oh, the irony of where I’m posting this). Among the things potentially in the future of Google are a variety of Internet-based applications which would allow a user to free himself from his desktop, or to essentially use “his computer” at any computer. The article does a good job of pointing out the importance of WiFi and Dark Fiber to their plan. There’s an appealing ambition in this plan of greater net access, but of concern to me are how central it would make Google to the operation of the Internet.
Some people speculate the company will use the dark fiber to build a massive nationwide network that would rival those of some of the largest Internet backbone providers such as MCI and AT&T. As that theory goes, Google would use this network to shuttle traffic across the country between its data centers. Then it would use a wireless network to distribute the content locally to end users.
This could have the potential to hinder one of the Internet’s greatest (and underappreciated) strenghts: it’s decentralized and non-discriminitory network architecture.
To make matters worse, the system is built on a series of patents which may lock control in Google’s hands.
Google is arguably one of the most interesting and innovative tech companies to come out since Apple, but perhaps we need to spend more time keeping a closer watch on Google.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4214516.stm
If nothing else, this tragedy has highlighted the importance of the news medias’ watchdog role: to be critical of the government, no matter who is in power or how tragic the times may be.
I haven’t had the chance to examine the philosophical basis of the last post yet, but now that this thought is in my mind I feel that I’m seeing evidence of it everywhere. To me, it makes perfect sense that to fully understand something one needs to take it apart and reassemble it–to see “what makes it tick.” Thus, by definition, understanding requires some kind of a copy. Perhaps if this idea has some psychological basis, and can be measured in some meaningful way, we can form a new understanding of what types of copying are permissible. Rather than look at the technical means of copying, we might look at motives or outcome. This may gel better with common conceptions of what a law like copyright might protect: piracy for profit would be seen as wrong, while borrowing to understand and improve would be encouraged.
John is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He studies the social impact of media technology law and policy, with a special emphasis on copyright.
John doesn't update his blog often, and many of the thoughts are probably half-baked. While the web has sort of an eternal memory, the current and future reader is urged not to take all of this too seriously.
Think of this blog as "John thinking out loud."
(For more on this idea and why I blog, please see this category.)
John's homepage is:
http://johnthomson.org/
