Musings from Bill
The idea that the internet is an unregulated space where free expression is the guiding principle and we can all talk openly took another blow last week with the latest report on net filtering from the Open Net Initiative.
Their study found many countries were filtering websites and email, and some were blocking new services like voice over IP. China, Burma, Tunisia and Iran were among the countries mentioned, and the overall message was that things are getting worse for the open internet.
[You can read this on the BBC News website, as usual.]
There’s a new widget on my blog, and I’m very pleased with it.
A widget is the general term for an item that someone else provides for you to embed in a web page, and my new toy comes from the online calendar service 30boxes.
It shows the next few events I’m planning to attend, and also links to the last three photos I’ve posted on the Flickr photo-sharing site, my last notification to Twitter and my most recent blog post.
It is exam time in schools around the UK. My son, aged 14, has SATs all week, while my daughter has GCSE papers from next Tuesday onwards. Some of her friends are locked in the art room for their practical exam today and tomorrow, others still have sore thumbs from last week’s textiles practical.
For the art exam students can take in material they have prepared in advance, like sketches and ideas, but in general anything that might be considered to give an unfair advantage is forbidden.
It’s a lovely day in Brighton, Apart from the rain. Having a fun time with SimonA
[As ever, this is on the BBC News website too]
The long-delayed launch of Windows Vista and the associated Office 2007 seems to have been a success, at least financially. In the last quarter Microsoft earned $14.4 billion and the company believes its sales for 2008 will be around $57 billion.
More people were buying Vista – or buying PCs that came with Vista already installed on it – than anticipated, although like any sensible company Microsoft will have pitched expectations at the low end of its real internal projections.
[As ever, you can read this on the BBC News website. And while the tinfoil hat brigade is already assembling there are some voices of sanity]
Students at Canada’s Lakehead University have to be careful how they connect to the internet because wifi is banned on large parts of the campus.
University president Fred Gilbert, whose academic interests include wildlife management, environmental studies and natural resources science, is worried about the health impact of the 2.4Ghz radio waves used by wireless networks
Last year he decided to adopt the precautionary principle and refused to allow wifi in those areas that have what he calls ‘hard wire connectivity’ until it is proved to be safe.
[As ever, this is on the BBC News website, and you can also find some relevant stuff over at the ENTER_ site]
Next week I’m chairing a session at a major conference on digital arts in Cambridge, and if all goes well I’ll be making some of the people there feel pretty uncomfortable about their attitude to personal privacy.
My session at the ENTER_ conference glories in the name ‘control technology’, and it’s about the ways in which artists make use of the many of the surveillance tools that surround and record us.
[As ever, you can read this on the BBC News website too.]
At the turn of the last millennium financial markets around the world realised that the valuations they were offering for companies whose business plans included the word ‘internet’ were completely ridiculous and that there was no way most of them were ever going to make money.
Share prices for those that had already floated collapsed; second round venture funding for startups disappeared, even for good ideas with a solid track record; and the angel investors took their money elsewhere.
I’m in Venice for the week, but projects don’t stop just because I’m away.
