Episode42

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Contents

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.

Links

Update on email rummaging

  • 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

Social Celebrity - The strange story of Brooke "Brookers" Brodack

  • 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.

Links

Short Stories

Otavo

  • 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?

Links

Finally someone stands up to the MPAA punks

  • 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.

Links

Tired of selling your soul? Freecycle!

  • 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.

Links

AMD to buy ATI

Fight the news

  • 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?

[1]

Dating 2.0

  • 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

Links

Media pimp

Gareth

Francis

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