Tag: Technology and Freedom
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Economic Growth, Censorship, and Search Engines
Economic growth depends on an ability to access relevant information. Although censorship prevents access to certain information, the direct consequences of censorship are well-known and somewhat predictable. For example, blocking access to Falun Gong literature is unlikely to harm a country’s consumer electronics industry. On the web, however, information of all types is interconnected. Blocking…
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The future of photography
Several interesting things are happening in the wild world of digital photography as it’s colliding with digital video. Most notably, the new Canon 5D Mark II (roughly $2700) can record 1080p video and the new Nikon D90 (roughly $1000) can record 720p video. At the higher end, Red just announced some cameras that will ship…
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Maybe "Open Source" Cars Aren't So Crazy After All
I wrote last week about the case for open source car software and, lo and behold, BMW might be pushing forward with the idea- albeit not in self-driving cars quite yet. 😉 Tangentially, I put “open source” in scare quotes because the car scenario highlights a new but important split in the open source and…
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Interesting Email from Sequoia
A copy of an email I received has been passed around on various mailing lists. Several people, including reporters, have asked me to confirm its authenticity. Since everyone seems to have read it already, I might as well publish it here. Yes, it is genuine. ==== Sender: Smith, Ed [address redacted]@sequoiavote.com To: felten@cs.princeton.edu, appel@princeton.edu Subject:…
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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 "…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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iPhone Unlocking Secret Revealed
The iPhone unlocking story took its next logical turn this week, with the release of a free iPhone unlocking program. Previously, unlocking required buying a commercial program or following a scary sequence of documented hardware and software tweaks. How this happened is interesting in itself. (Caveat: This is based on the stories I’m hearing; I…
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Does Apple Object to iPhone Unlocking?
I wrote Monday about efforts to “unlock” the iPhone so it worked on non-AT&T cell networks, and the associated legal and policy issues. AT&T lawyers have aggressively tried to stop unlocking; but Apple has been pretty silent. What position will Apple take? It might seem that Apple has nothing to lose from unlocking, but that’s…
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iPhone Unlocked; Legal Battle Looming?
In the past few days several groups declared victory in the battle to unlock the iPhone – to make the iPhone work on cellular networks other than AT&T’s. New Jersey teenager George Hotz published instructions (starting here) for a geeks-only unlock procedure involving hardware and software tweaks. An anonymous group called iPhoneSimFree reportedly has an…
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Judge Geeks Out, Says Cablevision DVR Infringes
In a decision that has triggered much debate, a Federal judge ruled recently that Cablevision’s Digital Video Recorder system infringes the copyrights in TV programs. It’s an unusual decision that deserves some unpacking. First, some background. The case concerned Digital Video Recorder (DVR) technology, which lets cable TV customers record shows in digital storage and…