Episode42

Is Blue sky R&D dead?

Scientific capital is not being replenished via Blue Sky research.
Start-ups are being locked out of the market by patent and trade secrets litigation.
Cold War era brought us the transistor and Arpanet, seeds of todays information economy at great private and public expense - Kansian pump priming of the economy via public and corporate research spending
Bell Labs, Xerox PARC and IBM's Labs allowed Blue sky research into areas with no apparent commercial applications.
Research labs became an unaffordable luxury. Closest is Google's 20 percent time.
Researchers now are under pressure to legitimize research by demonstrating it's potential as a marketable product.
Where then is the opportunity to do Blue sky research?
- Academia? No - increasingly accademic research is part funded by business
IP and trade secret laws prevent new ideas from coming to market.

We previously reported - plans are afoot to automatically scan the email of every uk citizen, and block 'objectionable' websites at the ISP level
One of our viewers contact his MP, and recieved an interesting reply

Youtube star Brooke "Brookers" Brodack has crossed over into mainstream media.
Her profile on youtube has had almost 2 mil views
Over 13000 subscribers to her videos on youtube.
Brookes video consist primarily of her singing along to songs
Spotted by Carson Daly who became a devoted fan.
Brookers has signed a talent/development deal to Daly's company Carson Daly Productions.
She will work on developing content for Tv, Internet and mobile outlets.

Your questions answered - social bookmarking, question asking and to-do lists.
Users can:
- Ask and answer questions, organise and comment on bookmarks and share goals which are called quests
Users rewarded for inviting new users and adding quests.
Question is, is it good enough to abandon your current bookmarking site eg. del.icio.us?
- Can you import the bookmarks and to-do lists you might already have?

MPAA and Universal Pictures are suing Shawn Hogan for downloading Meet the Fockers over BitTorrent.
Hogan denies the accusation and states he already owns the film on Dvd.
Hogan has declined to settle for $2500 and will fight the case in court.
Most people sued by the MPAA or RIAA under similar accusations settle due to the large legal fees that would be incurred fighting the case in court.
As we have stated a previous show, very tenuous evidence is often used by MPAA etc. to prove piracy
- Photos of computer screen and an IP address supplied to Tiscali to prove copyright infringement.
Hogan however has the means and the desire to fight.
This provides the first opportunity to resolve issues relevatant to these cases:
- How the associations get access to ISP records
- whether you can tie someone to an IP address in the age of Wi-Fi, anonymyzing networks, IP spoofing, Zombie networks etc.

Simple idea: Rather than throwing out something perfectly usable that you no longer want or need, give it to someone else for free: Freecycle it!
Freecycle Network is made up of individual groups which give away and get stuff for free.
Started in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson's downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills
Members email a list of any unwanted objects to other members in the group who then can respond if they want the item.
The giver then can decide who shall recieve the unwanted item.
Everything shared is free, legal and appropriate for all age levels.

Games for Change conference this month - showcased many games with political objectives
A variety of controversial games have been released dealing with contemporary political issues
Peacemaker - strategy game - resolve the middle east conflict as either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president
Food Force - released by the UN - explains the difficulty of providing aid to a war zone
A forse more powerful - teaches nonviolent political strategy
Dafur is Dying - released by MTV & tied to a real world campaign - where players must support thier village
Games already carry indoctrinatory messages - look at every action strategy shooter featuring US troops
Republican party used games to 'illustrate' political points during 2003 campaign
Some believe games are a highly effective way of explaining complex systems
More research needed to verify pedagoic efficacy
A struggle to keep the games interesting
- Will this trend make things worse, or even the playing field?

Techcrunch takes a look at the latest Web2.0 dating sites
As with other web2.0 services they currently make up a tiny proportion of their market
- with more traditional sites Match.com & Yahoo personals dominating
Consumating - hipsters, tagging, contests, celebration of wierdness
Engage - matchmaking
- users act as daters or matchmakers - viral quality
- compatibility votes
Greatboyfriends.com (and girlfriends) - friends and family leave family - which is then verified
Matchtag - social network with activities - users post activities - pick best respondent - then carry out the preprepared date
MingleNow - groups meet up by favourite bar / restaurant cafe
- interesting as it moves away from just dating
Poddater (remember podato?) - uses create videos which other users download and review
Prescription4Love - users with unique medical conditions / disabilities can meet
Verbdate - integrates skype chat, flickr photos, and tags
Wikia Personals - free global personals via wiki
Problem with many of these sites - US only! Tiny user populations