John Markoff’s article in the NYT about Internet vulnerabilities and projects like Stanford’s Clean Slate has been getting a lot of attention, including a thoughtful response from David Isenberg.  David’s right that a lot of the ideas in the NYT piece echo my book’s thesis.  Here’s my reply to David: Suppose that we agree on […]

Amazon has just introduced its second-generation Kindle book substitute.  As a reader, I’m intrigued — I can download a bunch of books and apparently use it for days without a charge.  Looking at the overall IT ecosystem, I’m also intrigued, but for opposite reasons. The downloading takes place over an “EVDO modem with fallback to […]

By Brendan Ballou Some of you may know that the FCC is auctioning off the 2155-2175 MHz (AWS-3) band of spectrum later next month, which could open up a whole host of new wireless technologies to consumers. Right now the commission is considering a number of public-interest requirements for the eventual winner of the auction […]

By Yvette Wohn Opening the refrigerator to get some eggs for breakfast, I was surprised to find a strange apparatus built into one of the shelves. “What the…” “It’s a power juicer,” the refrigerator said, “I know you like fruit, so I decided to install this last night.” “Wow, that’s very considerate of you, but […]

A few weeks ago, Google and T-Mobile rolled out the G1, the first mobile phone to run the open-source Android operating system. As the Android platform and Android Marketplace develop, it will be interesting to see how they compare to the iPhone platform and the App Store. Will the openness provide the benefits the Open […]

By Yvette Wohn After much anticipation and fanfare, the Android made a wobbly debut. A security flaw was discovered just days after it was released and users discovered some fine print that gives Google more power than originally anticipated. Despite these problems, critics are still optimistic about the Android because it encourages generativity. Android is an […]

By Yvette Wohn The Wii game console is a perfect example of what the book describes as tethered technology. In designing the architecture of the Wii, Nintendo did not want users to use the Wii for purposes other than playing Wii games. It took a step even further, creating different regional and country codes and […]

The iPhone has come some way since the days when Steve Jobs pledged that Apple would “define everything that is on the phone.”  Yet even with a software development kit allowing for outside coding, Apple reserves the right to … define everything that is on the phone.  Application makers submit their apps for Apple’s approval, […]

One of the more contestable claims of the FOI book is that tethered information appliances like the iPhone, that either block outside apps or subject them to much more gatekeeping by the platform vendor, will not only complement the more open PC, but overtake it — that PCs themselves will become appliancized. Already there’s talk […]

In 2006, two guys from India came up with Scrabulous, a Scrabble-like game that took off only after it was transformed from a standalone Web site into a Facebook app.  Hasbro, holder of the Scrabble trademark in North America, noticed, as did Mattel, holder of rights elsewhere, and asked them to take it down.  They […]