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Latest Read: When Gadgets Betray Us

Robert Vamosi wrote When Gadgets Betray Us: The Dark Side of Our Infatuation With New Technologies in 2013. Today in the age of COVID-19 this book remains very relevant. Upon his book release, Robert spoke at Microsoft Research.

When Gadgets Betray Us: The Dark Side of Our Infatuation With New Technologies
When Gadgets Betray Us: The Dark Side of Our Infatuation With New Technologies

When Gadgets Betray Us is really about the internet of things (IoT) and the explosion of cheap gadgets.

This is a two fold problem: the impulse of human behavior to jump right into a new, innovative, ‘shiny’ devices. We more often skip reading the manual. Who reads manuals anyway these days?

However the ability for a nation state to remotely hack building controls and manipulate industrial machines seemed like stuff from a Hollywood movie, even back in 2013.

Clearly Vamosi could not have considered the impact of Stuxnet, the attack by Israel and the US NSA to destroy centrifuges in an underground facility in Iran. My review Countdown to Zero Day will surprise many readers.

This is a good starting point for many readers. Generally When Gadgets Betray Us reveals how our devices (phones, cars, smart watches, home thermostats and even baby monitors leaked location data. Worse, baby monitors permitted hackers to hijack the video feeds meant for remote grandparents, family and friends.

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Design Innovation Network Rich media Smartphone Tablet Technology

Koss Striva wifi headphones

Koss today has introduced new wifi headphones.  The announcement is just 5 hours old but looks pretty interesting.  In addition to plugging (sorry) into a Koss streaming service users can attach an small adapter to any iOS device.  Set your iPhone down and walk around listening to music wireless!

Kinda thinking this would be nice while mowing the lawn or even better…working out.  Cannot tell you how many times my iPod headphones have been caught up on a treadmill arm.  Arg!  Time for my gym to install some wireless APs around their facilities.

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Google Network Rich media Technology

MDNA: sales vs. torrents

I simply burst out laughing reading the Detroit News‘ article regarding Madonna’s sharply falling record sales.  Her latest release MDNA debuted at #1 last week after selling 359,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. Yet as the article indicated: Madonna set to make the wrong kind of chart history.  Clearly author Adam Graham (@grahamorama) has no idea how torrents have simply crushed the music industry.  If he does understand — it was not mentioned in his article.

Riddle me this: How does Nielsen, Billboard or any other entertainment resource accurately reflect the impact of torrents on sales?  Ah….they can’t. The fact that Nielsen/Billboard still lists “traditional chart history” tells me another analog business is choking to death on the globalized internet.

I have come to accept that illegal downloads are no different than drugs, ebooks, guns or music.  All are in heavy demand.  The only difference: ebooks and music use the internet. Supply and demand.  Nothing more.

Its been a long standing issue for me to see mainstream media really show how inept they are when it relates to the globalization of the internet.  So what exactly did Adam Graham miss?

If you really want to understand the way the world works…

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation Internet2 Network Rich media Technology

Internet2’s Artistic Collaborations Over High Bandwidth Networks

Held in Indianapolis in April 2010, The 2010 Intermedia Festival of Telematic Arts held in April was a unique series of events presenting futuristic modes of live telematic and media arts by artists throughout North America and Europe. Telematic art synthesizes performing arts with computers, media and telecommunications. Over 100 artists traveled to Indianapolis while others participated remotely via Internet2.
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A combination of art performances including dance, music, visual arts and videography with commentary and discussion were integrated to create a compelling set of experiences.  The session included an overview of the multi-institutional activity involving students, faculty, and administrators. Classes of students from Florida State University, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Butler University, University of Calgary, University of Cincinnati and Indiana University Bloomington met in the months prior to the festival in order to plan and rehearse their respective performances online.

This session examined the presentation of telematic art to the general public via Internet2 at the downtown Indianapolis Public Library. This effort involved strategies to intermingle both high and low bandwidth venues into a seamless, integrated performance environment.

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Rich media Technology TED

Latest read: The Wealth of Networks

I have been looking at The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom as a learning tool for social networks impacting society and found this a very deep read….like a college econ/sociology textbook.  Caught myself thinking I was actually back in school. This goes much deeper than Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler has written a very comprehensive book to describe conflicts between analog and digital data creators in society and how internet based technologies are changing society and commerce.

It’s a good read but hard to grasp due to a focus on economics. Don’t be fooled the by title if your looking at computer networks….he has written it into the binding that ties his arguments together.  It is truly worth the read.

Benkler shares how technology has merged the professional and the consumer into a ‘prosumer’ due to low cost and high performing computers and robust networks have made distribution of information cheap enough that community is now empowered to drive change.

Take a look at how the internet has evolved.  The Akami to YouTube migration showed how multimedia has found a free, reliable distribution center.  When you also migrate 1st generation complex, large scale websites to new blogs and content management systems under the open source business model Benkler states that data is now a “non-rival” product that has democratized the digital workflow of data from brick and mortar to community, peer-developed content solutions.

Benkler suggests modern computing drives new, strong and deep collaboration that can have a large impact on the global economy and society.  Benkler also suggests that as more consumers embrace technology collaboration, change to our culture is possible due to engines of free exchange (wikipedia, creative commons, open source and the blogosphere) could be more efficient (when shared) than current models that are restricted by copyright and patents because the ability to duplicate (or reproduce digital content) makes little or no impact on business.

Tags: The Wealth of Networks, Social Technologies, economy, society, Yochai Benkler, education, change, reading, trends