Category: Uncategorized
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2007 Predictions Scorecard
As usual, we’ll start the new year by reviewing the predictions we made for the previous year. Here now, our 2007 predictions, in italics, with hindsight in ordinary type. (1) DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly. We predict this every year, and…
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Three Down, One to Go: Warner Music to Sell MP3s
Warner Music will sell music through Amazon’s online store without DRM (copy protection) technology, according to a New York Times story by Jeff Leeds. This is a big step for Warner, given that earlier this year Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman said that selling MP3s would be “completely without logic or merit.” The next question is…
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Obama's Digital Policy
The Iowa caucuses, less than a week away, will kick off the briefest and most intense series of presidential primaries in recent history. That makes it a good time to check in on what the candidates are saying about digital technologies. Between now and February 5th (the 23-state tsunami of primaries that may well resolve…
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The Return of 3-D Movies
[Today’s guest post is by longtime reader and commenter Mitch Golden. Thanks, Mitch! If you’re a Freedom to Tinker reader and have a great idea for a guest post, please let me know. – Ed] Last Friday I was at a movie preview for a concert movie called U23D, which, as you will correctly surmise,…
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The "…and Technology" Debate
When an invitation to the facebook group came along, I was happy to sign up as an advocate of ScienceDebate 2008, a grassroots effort to get the Presidential candidates together for a group grilling on, as the web site puts it, “what may be the most important social issue of our time: Science and Technology.”…
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Computing in the Cloud, January 14-15 in Princeton
The agenda for our workshop on the social and policy implications of “Computing in the Cloud” is now available, along with information about how to register (for free). We have a great lineup of speakers, with panels on “Possession and ownership of data”, “Security and risk in the cloud”, “Civics in the cloud”, and “What’s…
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Joining Princeton's InfoTech Policy Center
The Center for InfoTech Policy at Princeton will have space next year to host visiting scholars. If you’re interested, see the announcement.
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Lessons from Facebook's Beacon Misstep
Facebook recently beat a humiliating retreat from Beacon, its new system for peer-based advertising, in the face of users’ outrage about the system’s privacy implications. (When you bought or browsed products on certain third-party sites, Beacon would show your Facebook friends what you had done.) Beacon was a clever use of technology and might have…
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Universal Didn't Ignore Digital, Just Did It Wrong
Techies have been chortling all week about comments made by Universal Music CEO Doug Morris to Wired’s Seth Mnookin. Morris, despite being in what is now a technology-based industry, professed extreme ignorance about the digital world. Here’s the money quote: Morris insists there wasn’t a thing he or anyone else could have done differently. “There’s…
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Workshop: Computing in the Cloud
I’m excited to announce that Princeton’s Center for InfoTech Policy is putting on a workshop on the policy and social implications of “Computing in the Cloud” – the trend where companies, rather than users, store and manage an increasing range of personal data. Examples include Hotmail and Gmail replacing desktop email, YouTube taking over as…