Last week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Reverb Communications, a firm that describes its business as a: … full service videogame agency that provides public relations, marketing, and sales services through one integrated campaign to the interactive entertainment and music industry.  Using precise messaging and calculated marketing campaigns, we are able [...]

I’ve been trying to figure out what the Google/Verizon announcement means.  It’s not easy to do, in large part because the announcement doesn’t precisely announce anything.  It’s titled a “legislative framework proposal.”  That is, on its own terms it’s not an agreement between two companies — neither is bound to do anything by it, which [...]

It’s hard to know what to make of the Google/Verizon deal since until earlier today both companies have denied that there is one. And it’s hard to argue about net neutrality because it means so many different things to different people. I’ve got lots of reading to do to catch up on the newly released [...]

I’ve blogged a few thoughts about the Wikileaks saga over at Technology Review.

“Why did you walk around all day with rubber balls in your hands?” Orr sniggered again. “I did it to protect my good reputation in case anyone ever caught me walking around with crab apples in my cheeks. With rubber balls in my hands I could deny there were crab apples in my cheeks. Every [...]

Nick Bilton over at the NYT Bits Blog has the story of Internet security consultant Ronald Bowes’s recent Facebook caper.  Ron noticed that Facebook has a directory of its users, just like the old Bell Telephone White Pages.  I agree with Ron’s assessment that this is a very little-noticed feature: normally one searches on Facebook [...]

A few weeks ago Internet security firm McAfee released an update to its Windows PC customers designed to protect them against a newly detected virus threat.  Instead, for some, the update destroyed a legitimate, and crucial, system file.  Uncountable numbers of PCs – likely hundreds of thousands, even millions – were rendered unusable.  The University [...]

I’ll be offline until about May 10.  In the meantime, um, keep it generative!  …JZ

First things first: yes, I’m in the hospital, but I’m OK.  (I’m blogging, right?) The details: I found myself in the hospital last Thursday thanks to unexplained fevers that spiked at night and were gone by day.  After a bunch of tests my unfailingly conscientious doctor recommended (well, insisted) I get to the hospital for [...]

The amazing Hubble telescope has now shown us images of galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago.  That’s because the light comes from 13.2 billion light years away, and took (by definition) that much time to get here: “The deeper Hubble looks into space, the farther back in time it looks, because light takes billions of [...]