August 19th, 2008 | by zittrain | published in iphone | 1 Comment
After praising the iPhone as wholesome as warm bread, Colbert takes to task the iPhone for its “kill switch” (“It actually kills you!”). In the meantime, Gizmodo reports that there’s a “BossPrefs” app to disable it, joining the more labor intensive method of tricking the iPhone into thinking that the Apple update server is found […]
August 14th, 2008 | by zittrain | published in Future of the Internet, iphone | 7 Comments
It’s been clear from the start that information appliances like the iPhone, tethered to their vendors, would have a kill switch — that’s just a subset of the vendor’s (in the case, Apple’s) ability to reprogram any aspect of the phone from a distance at any time. In a world of third party apps, that […]
August 12th, 2008 | by jilliancyork | published in Herdict | 1 Comment
Followers of Herdict’s progress may have noticed by now that our chosen icon is the sheep. “What’s up with the sheep?” they might ask. “Herdict” is a portmanteau of “herd” and “verdict” – used to mean “the verdict of the herd.” Since the goal of Herdict Network Health is to gain insight into what the […]
August 6th, 2008 | by epeterson | published in Herdict | 4 Comments
This fall the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (and JZ’s new home) will unveil Herdict, a suite of programs that gathers data from users around the world about their PCs’ performance and ability to access websites. Herdict aggregates this information and aims to provide a real time picture of users’ PC health and web […]
August 4th, 2008 | by zittrain | published in iphone | 2 Comments
I don’t mean to only talk about the iPhone apps system — Facebook apps, Google mash-ups, and plenty of other emerging platforms share the fascinating if troubling characteristics of iPhone apps — but it’s an example that’s continuing to expand. On the one hand is the NYT’s reporting that the iPhone Apps Store has pressured […]
