The BillBlog

[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.

Continue reading “Disconnected thinking”

Where the webcam is

Originally uploaded by BillT.

Inspired by John Naughton’s Dublin picture.

[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.

Continue reading “Can the network grow?”

I’m in Venice for the week, but projects don’t stop just because I’m away.

[Also there to read on the BBC News website, as usual]

At the press event to announce that the iTunes Music Store will be selling ‘premium’ songs from EMI’s catalogue without the copy-protection offered by the Fairplay digital rights management system Steve Jobs noted that ‘some doubted Apple’s sincerity when we made our proposal earlier this year … they said we had too much to lose.’

That would be me, then.

Continue reading “Steve Jobs proves me wrong”

[As ever, this is also published on the BBC News website]

Tila Tequila has over one and a half million contacts on MySpace and a profile filled with pages of her scantily-clad form draped over chairs, cars and poles. Visit her page and you get some audio bubblegum to entertain you – apparently a track from her eagerly awaited debut album, for the multi-skilled Tila is a singer as well as a model.

Now she has become the latest online celebrity to come into conflict with a social network site after MySpace asked her to remove a link that let visitors buy songs from a competing service, pointing out that ‘we retain the right to block or remove content that violates our terms of use, including unauthorized commercial transactions’.

Continue reading “Building public spaces online”