Google launches Government Requests tool. Google is now making public information on the requests it receives from government agents to remove content from its search results or reveal private user data. The Government Requests tool currently displays the number and type of requests by country for the last six months of 2009. In a bit [...]

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

Government transparency through technology. U.S. federal government agencies published their open government plans online this week.  The plans detail long-term strategies for addressing one of the three identified principles of open government—transparency, civic participation, and government collaboration with public and private sectors.  They can be accessed by appending “/open” to the department website address.  The [...]

On April 3, an Adobe technical project manager demonstrated that Adobe’s new Air software could be used to develop across platforms—he created a Reversi game app that runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and OS X (see potential caveats in comments here). Cool! As JZ said, via email, “if this is really possible, [...]

A coalition of prominent netizens and watchdogs released its wishlist this week for Digital Due Process.  Google, Microsoft, AT&T, the ACLU, and EFF, among others, are advocating for an update of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act.  The statute, which includes the current regulations government agencies follow to access an individual’s electronic data and communications, [...]

Internet Telephony Comes to the iPhone. Apple has approved an app intended to provide a virtual second line for business that allows consumers to make calls using Wi-Fi when available instead of AT&T’s cellular network.  The Line2 app may allow iPhone users to downgrade their AT&T cell plans, though contracts and lack of universal Wi-Fi [...]

Recently, the Electronic Freedom Foundation posted the previously secret iPhone Developer Program License Agreement – a contract that apparently all iPhone app developers are required to click-sign before using Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit.  Though a provision of the Agreement prohibits disclosure of its contents, EFF gained access by requesting it under the Freedom of [...]

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 [...]

We’ve previously covered the drawn-out battle between EchoStar and TiVo over EchoStar’s DVR technology, which TiVo claims infringes its patents. The merits of the patent dispute are, as with most, Byzantine, but a jury has found that EchoStar has indeed infringed TiVo’s patents, and appeals courts have affirmed that finding. The key point from an [...]

A roundup of happenings that bear on the issues in The Future of the Internet – Canadian Android Carrier Forcing Firmware Update. A Canadian carrier wanted users to download a firmware upgrade that fixed a glitch prohibiting users from dialing 911, so it made the upgrade mandatory. Seems reasonable. But it bundled in an update [...]