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Forking the book

As one of the first mass produced industrial artifacts the book remains a solid cultural signifier of stability. That aura is pretty strong and attractive and makes it pretty hard to think about books as being anything other than static …

Publishing News: Consequences and questions from the Twitter kerfuffle

Here are a few stories that caught my attention in the publishing space this week. 20-20 hindsight On Sunday, Twitter suspended British journalist Guy Adams’ account after he tweeted NBC executive Gary Zenkel’s email address. Much kerfuffle ensued, Adams wrote …

Four short links: 27 July 2012

Social Media in China (Fast Company) — fascinating interview with Tricia Wang. We often don’t think we have a lot to learn from tech companies outside of the U.S., but Twitter should look to Weibo for inspiration for what can …

Four short links: 20 July 2012

Intercepted Drones — The demonstration of the near-disaster, led by Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the UTA’s Radionavigation Laboratory, points to a “gaping hole” in the US’s plan to open US airspace to thousands of drones, Fox noted: …

Publishing News: Britannica isn't dead, it's digital

Encyclopaedia Britannica unloads its print product, a Belgian copyright group wants libraries to pay for reading to children, and PayPal does a 180.

Publishing News: Britannica isn't dead, it's digital

Encyclopaedia Britannica unloads its print product, a Belgian copyright group wants libraries to pay for reading to children, and PayPal does a 180.

Publishing News: The threat of censorship, from a non-government entity

PayPal's demand on Smashwords is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Elsewhere, proposals to get publishers past piracy and a newspaper study reports grim results.

Publishing News: The threat of censorship, from a non-government entity

PayPal's demand on Smashwords is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Elsewhere, proposals to get publishers past piracy and a newspaper study reports grim results.

Visualization of the Week: Social media and the UK riots

The Guardian has created an interactive visualization of some 2.5 million tweets to challenge the British government's contention that rioters used Twitter to organize the recent violence.

Visualization of the Week: Social media and the UK riots

The Guardian has created an interactive visualization of some 2.5 million tweets to challenge the British government's contention that rioters used Twitter to organize the recent violence.

Developer Week in Review: The unglamorous life of video game developers

The folks who make video games sound the alarm bells on working conditions, governments try to break the Internet, and MITRE unveils 2011's most dangerous software errors.

Technology for Internet freedom and innovation at the State Department

Alec J. Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State's senior advisor for innovation, doesn't want a tech strategy -- he wants policy and change with a tech component. Read more about Ross' role and his goals in this interview.

Four short links: 30 April 2010

Exploiting Privacy Threats in BitTorrent -- INRIA researchers were able to identify big seeders and big downloaders and find downloaders' IP addresses through Tor. (via Slashdot) Google on Internet Censorship -- text of a speech to the UN Human Rights Council. I won’t talk at length about the Global Network Initiative, but it’s something that our company and Microsoft...

Four short links: 9 March 2010

Cooperative Behaviour Spreads Through a Group, But So Does Cheating (Not Exactly Rocket Science) -- Fowler and Christakis suggest that people tend to mimic the actions of those they played with. They could be directly imitating the actions of other players, or they could be looking out for cues that tell them the 'right' or 'normal' way of behaving....

Four short links: 23 January 2010

WikiLeaks Fundraising -- PayPal has frozen WikiLeaks' assets. Interesting: they need $600k/yr to run. The Great Australian Internet Blackout -- online protest to raise awareness about the Great Firewall of Australia. HTML5 Video: Problems Ahead -- YouTube and Vimeo won't support a free codec (file format). The web is undeniably better for Mozilla having entered the browser market, and...

Google's Fall Out With China - Making a Stand for Free Speech

Time and time again, China has tested the digital world, trying to stifle its free information flow and control the resources that are open to its people. There are a long list of methods China has employed to clamp down on access...

Bringing e-Books to Africa and the Middle East

In the United States, Western Europe and Asia, e-Books are becoming a major player, especially now that e-Readers like the Kindle and Nook are available. But people living in the Arabic speaking world or Africa haven't been invited to the dance. Two of the keynote speakers at the upcoming Tools of Change conference are working to improve access to e-Books in these areas: Arthur Attwell in South Africa and Ramy Habeeb in Egypt. We talked to each of them about how e-Books are important in their area of the world, and the challenges that they are facing.

Review of Guobin Yang's "Power of the Internet in China"

My review of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online, a combination of research and sociological analysis,

Report: Facebook A Haven For Hate Groups

Dr. Oboler published a new report on Tuesday and this time he has targeted Facebook and with good reason. Despite a prohibition in the popular social networking website's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, it's terms of service, Facebook has remained a happy home for Holocaust denial and racist "white pride" groups.

Walking the Censorship Tightrope with Google's Marissa Mayer

Google sometimes finds itself at an difficult crossroad of wanting to make as much information available to as many people as possible, while still trying to obey the laws of the countries they operate in. I recently had a chance to talk to Marissa Mayer, who started at Google as their first female engineer, and has now risen to the ranks of vice president in charge of some of Google's most critical product areas, such as search, maps and Chrome. We talked about some of Google's future product directions, and also about how Google makes the decision as to when information has to be withheld from the users. Marissa will be delivering a keynote address at the O'Reilly Velocity conference next week.

Gruber's Ficitional App Store Censor

John Gruber's "Excerpts From the Diary of an App Store Reviewer" is cutting satire of the arbitrary decision making and capricious censorship that is generated by Apple's opaque App Store approval process. Read more about this brilliant commentary on the absurdity of the relationships between the Censor, the Censored, and "objectionable" material.

Judith Krug: heroine of libraries, Internet, PATRIOT Act resistance

Consider giving a donation to your local public library this week in honor of Judith Krug, whose death at the age of 69 was announced this morning. Krug defended libraries and the Internet from censorship, and advised librarians how to protect their patrons from government spying on their reading habits.