FOI Topics and Links
June 1st, 2010 | by Jennifer | Published in Android, censorship, cybersecurity, Facebook, Future of the Internet, Generativity, iphone, kindle, news | 1 Comment
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 of irony, last week Google disclosed that it had accidentally collected fragments of private user information over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks during drive-by data collection for Google Maps.
Communicating with the e-book mothership. If the latest must-read on Kindle is dotted with typos or has a few pages missing, there’s a good chance Amazon offers a patch to correct the error. It’s a handy Internet-enabled functionality, although one can imagine at the extreme authors continuing to update their work ad infinitum, making it impossible for a reader to say he or she has read an e-book since content is always subject to change. Information flows in the other direction on the Kindle superhighway too, as Amazon apparently keeps track of what readers are highlighting. There’s some creep factor in Amazon knowing what ideas Kindle readers think are important, even if the most highlighted passages are in works as deep as The Lost Symbol. But the information is also so interesting.
The remote control. In April, Sony quietly revised the End User License Agreement that came with the latest PS3 firmware update to allow the company to change how an owner’s console operates in whatever way it wants, no notice or permission required. Now the FCC, at the request of the MPAA, has given cable and satellite providers the right to remotely disable output connections on consumers’ set-top boxes, leading consumers to ask “What did I buy?”
Curated Computing is the new name in town for the experience provided by the tablet non-PC. This particular term is meant to accentuate the “less choice, more relevance” aspects of that experience. It rolls off the tongue more smoothly than “contingently generative” and sounds less regressive than an “appliance,” but it connotes somewhat life aboard the Axiom. However, its proponents suggest that curated computing devices are meant to exist alongside and supplement traditional PCs. Let’s call that a worthy goal and the best of both worlds.
iPhone pillow talk with Steve Jobs. A ValleyWag reporter last week exchanged late-night emails with a defiant Steve Jobs on the iPhone’s ability to give people “freedom from” data theft, battery hogs, and porn. The emails speak for themselves, giving a little insight into Jobs’ perspective on the benefits and aims of the iPhone. He gets a little snarky at the end, but then again it’s 2am when he’s responding, and he never has a chance to clarify his comments, unlike the Gawker reporter.
Android outsells iPhone. During the first quarter of 2010, phones with the Android OS grabbed 28% of the U.S. market share, surpassing iPhone’s 21% (RIM’s Blackberry is still at the top with 36%). Although Android benefited from Verizon’s buy-one-phone-get-one-free promotion and iPhone continues to lead worldwide, it appears Google is getting closer in Apple’s rearview mirror.
McAfee prevents computers from booting up in new virus-protection strategy. Centralizing security software in a few big providers concentrates expertise to solve problems, while also meaning that there are only a few–albeit strong–security systems the bad guys need to breach in order to wreak widespread havoc. But in a previously under-appreciated risk, a flawed update of widely-used antivirus software can cut out the middleman and accomplish the same havoc directly. A McAfee software update mistakenly identified a critical file as a virus and quarantined it, causing computers around the world, many of which automatically install updates, to repeatedly attempt to boot up. One source estimated that 800,000 PCs were affected.
Taking [re-]generativity seriously. A Connecticut mayor donated her kidney to a Facebook friend last month after seeing his desperate status update. The patient’s doctor had suggested that he try publicizing his need through social media, using an online connection to a forge a real-world bond.
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 am (#)
Steve Jobs speaks Flash, ‘lying S.O.B devs’, sex, and Gizmodocrime…
Steve Jobs states that Flash has had its day, work on the iPad began before work on the iPhone, the Gizmodophone may have been “stolen out of [Apple engineer Gray Powell's] bag”, more than one developer is a “son of a bitch liar,” and his sex life…