machine-envy

It had to happen. After months waiting for my Second Life contact to get around to writing a piece for openDemocracy on theories of innovation in virtual worlds, I have been forced to rehash his thesis in the New Statesman:
“Those who have not yet heard about Second Life, the online virtual world, can’t have read […]

This fortnight’s column for openDemocracy is on the fate of “professional journalism” in the new media age. Since newspapers generally devote forest-loads of copy to their own fate at the hands of the internet, this is a topic I’ve steered clear of for a number of years. But here’s my tuppence worth.
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Missed this news when it broke last month, but intrigued to hear today that Google has inaugurated it’s own political action committee (PAC) to support candidates seeking electoral office in the United States. According to Google’s chief communications bod Ricardo Reyes, Google will use the PAC to lobby on issues such as net neutrality. This […]

Speaking of ideas-in-progress, Prof Jonathan Zittrain gave a lecture at the LSE last Friday entitled: “What would you put on the one laptop per child?”. It was basically an introduction for development types to his generativity theory, via the $100 laptop initiative, but he tested a few interesting ideas during the lecture, which are worth […]

This week’s column in the New Statesman stretches a metaphor. After Tony Neate, director of GetSafeOnline advised UK web surfers to “treat their PC like their car” and maintain it with regular updates, lock it away safely behind a firewall, etc, I go on to suggest that, if we want our PCs to remain open […]

openDemocracy’s Deputy Editor, David Hayes, points me to this excellent article from The Nation, which predicts that media megacorps will use the new web 2.0 environment to pollute our mental space in ways we cannot yet imagine:
“Advertisers are harnessing technology that targets and follows Internet users on their journeys through cyberspace, collecting data and tracking […]

This week’s column in the New Statesman reviews the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s recent survey of prominent futurologists:
“Sometimes writing about the internet can seem like a cop-out. Imagining the impact that new technology will have on human life, in all its social, political and linguistic forms, is fun, exciting and much easier than, […]

This fortnight’s article for openDemocracy continues on a theme:
“My column a fortnight ago (”Claiming our digital rights”, 26 September 2006) sparked a train of thought that hasn’t stopped chugging through my brain since. The piece was a celebration of the imminent victory over that most unsuitable of technologies, digital rights management, but sounded a note […]

It’s been a while since anybody posted here. Sorry. After the New Statesman gave away my column for advertising space last week, I was put into an enchanted sleep deep in a forest in Somerset, a spell which could only be broken by Google buying YouTube.