Yearly archives of “2005

Artefacts & politics

Artefacts & politics

Many academic fields touch on areas relevant to this subject, from architecture to computer science. Perhaps the closest single exposition of many of the pertinent concepts is Langdon Winner’s 1986 “Do artifacts* have politics?” in which he discusses the idea that: “The machines, structures, and […]

Service discrimination via two-tier internet

Service discrimination via two-tier internet

The spectre of a two-tier internet (see Control & networks) looms closer again, as detailed in this Boston Globe article – Telecoms want their products to travel on a faster Internet (via Furdlog). “The proposal supported by AT&T and BellSouth would allow telecommunications carriers to […]

New Analog Hole Bill

New Analog Hole Bill

Via EFF DeepLinks, the news that a new “Digital Transition Content Security Act” is being proposed in the US – specifically targetting video ADCs (see discussion of the analogue (analog) hole).

Cinemas jamming mobile phone signals

Cinemas jamming mobile phone signals

Via Boing Boing – the US’s National Association of Theater Owners wants the FCC’s permission to block mobile reception inside cinemas. To be honest I thought this already happened in some places… maybe I’d mentally linked it to office buildings with Faraday cage wall structures […]

Intel Viiv: control through integrated systems

Intel Viiv: control through integrated systems

Via Furdlog: Intel’s new Viiv technology, the basis of a new range of dual-core processor ‘home media centres,’ will, apparently mean that: “PCs would work with televisions and digital recorders and portable devices so people could move their entertainment wherever they wanted.” (LA Times story)

GPS External Speed Control in Canada

GPS External Speed Control in Canada

Via Slashdot, a CNN story reports that: Canadian auto regulators are testing a system that would enforce speed limits by making it harder to push down the car’s gas pedal once the speed limit is passed… [using] a global positioning satellite device installed in the […]

What things regulate?

What things regulate?

Lawrence Lessig, currently of Stanford Law School, has been at the forefront of much recent and current debate on intellectual property and how the internet is constructed and regulated. His books, Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace [29], The Future of Ideas [51] and more […]

Control & networks

Control & networks

To some extent, the desire of companies to control what consumers do with their products has parallels with attempts at price discrimination in industries such as freight transportation, and, especially, telecommunications. Andrew Odlyzko of the University of Minnesota’s Digital Technology Center points out that telecommunications […]

Everyday things & persuasive technology

Everyday things & persuasive technology

Two precedents from the interface between design, business and psychology are especially relevant here. First, Donald Norman’s influential The Psychology of Everyday Things, later republished as The Design of Everyday Things [32], formalised and analysed much of the accumulated wisdom surrounding user behaviour and interaction […]

The democracy of innovation

The democracy of innovation

Eric von Hippel of MIT has charted the phenomenon of user-led innovation, and how this has benefited both companies and users, in The Sources of Innovation [57], published in 1988, and, most recently, Democratizing Innovation* [58]. As discussed in the ‘Reactions’ section of this site, […]