While Google fights the good fight against the Fed’s search subpoena, it seems they are also prepping for the worst — and quietly enlisting us all to help.
With the typical media freak-out surrounding Google’s subpoena battle, it’s been somewhat easy to miss the fact that their colleagues at AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo each caved instantly in the face of the exact same request. Clearly, Google’s pushback should be applauded but, then, they’ve also got the most to lose. It’s not hard to see the handover of the search data as a first step on the road to handing over everything else. For Google this is particularly damaging because it means coughing up Gmail, the archive-everything target of privacy peeps everywhere. If the fed takes the next logical step and wraps its carnivorous jaws around this designed-to-be-searched mail treasure chest, it’ll prove the privacy pundits right and “don’t be evil” starts to look nice in the rearview.
That’s where preparing for the worst comes in. Ultimately, if the data is there it is subject to subpoena. Solution: kill the data (as much as “organize the world’s information” Google hates it). Is it really much much surprise, then, that Gmail just recently promoted its Delete function from a backwater submenu to the very front page, giving it nearly equal prominence to the “save-it-forever” Archive button? And this promotion preceded the Fed going public by only a week or two. Coincidence? Doubt it. More like Google placing the last line of defense front and center for those of us hoping to avoid winning one of Dubya’s Gitmo getaways.
Update 2/3: Google admits legal requests for Gmail messages but says no more.
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Remember the first time you used a Macintosh? If you got goosebumps, this book is for you. Further, if names like Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, Andy Hertzfeld, Bruce Horn, and Susan Kare ring a vague nostalgic bell, you are legally required to buy it. Why? Because Andy Hertzfeld’s “Revolution in the Valley” tells the story of the creation of Macintosh so intimately that you feel like you were there. It does this not by trying to detail the whole saga from beginning to end but rather by capturing snapshot stories from 1979-1985 that bring the reader inside the central moments.
Ever wonder what early versions of Macintosh were like? Did you know the ultra-famous 1984 superbowl ad was very nearly canned after it was completed? How about how the first icons, fonts, and sounds evolved? Or, visit the classic “signing party” where the team signed their names to be immortalized in the bottom of each Mac case. And what about those people — the people behind the names in the original Finder, MacPaint, and MacWrite about boxes (Bill, Steve, Andy, Bruce, Susan and more). You get to know each of them close-up. For instance, how hardware genius Burrell Smith’s design style was inspired by the classic videogame Defender.
Continue reading ‘Busy Being Born’
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Can computing technology significantly empower disadvantaged peoples on a broad scale? Two related trends have emerged over the past 10 years that provide reason to believe.
The first and older trend is free open source software. Although it was initiated in the 1970’s, the movement has really come into its own of late with the development of software that is competitive with the best commercial options. (Linux, Gnome, Mozilla, and OpenOffice are usual suspects.) Two key features of this trend are: (1) the cost of software is being driven to zero and (2) corporate interests are no longer driving the feature sets because there is no profit motive. Software is being made purely by the people for the people.
Secondly, collaboration technologies have radically reduced the difficulty of publishing content online to the point where most anyone can do it. The accessibility of blogs, for instance, has increased the diversity of voices heard broadly — from Iraqis to stay-at-home moms. And they’re influential. Blogs break stories and force the traditional media to cover stories they wouldn’t otherwise. Likewise, Wikis have changed the landscape of collaborative content creation dramatically. Wikipedia, for instance, threatens to drive commercial encyclopedias under by offering an nearly an order of magnitude more articles than the nearest competitor. And anyone can contribute. Lastly, emerging technologies like the grassroots toolkit CivicSpace (an outgrowth of the Dean campaign) make it significantly easier to organize groups for civic action. The beat goes on.
These two trends together — software cost going to zero and collaboration becoming radically simple — open new doors. Developing countries are embracing open source, massively increasing access. Continue reading ‘Grass Roots Technology and Empowerment’
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In a recent Fortune article on Apple, you’ll find a great quote:
Your typical corporate CIO must be wondering, “Why aren’t there some nice new exciting applications for me?” Nothing has really changed in his world, while on the consumer side there’s all this cool new stuff like iTunes and the iPod and iPhoto and iMovie. That’s where the real innovation is now, and Apple is driving it.
– Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems (full text)
For a while, I’ve found my research interests skewing increasingly towards ideas that were first seen in the home and other non-business domains (blogs, instant messaging, open source, online games, etc.). What Joy seems to be saying, though, is that something bigger than personal interest is at work: innovation in computing has fundamentally shifted focus from business to the home. (Fast-follower that he is, Bill Gates picked up the thread today and, as usual, talks like he originated it.)
This has at least two implications for business-facing research (BFR). First, it can no longer be assumed that such research is leading the way. The innovation going on in the home must be taken seriously and tracked closely. In general, BFR pays some lip service to these developments but is quite dismissive when the mics are off. Secondly, corporate labs need to be on the lookout for thoughtful ways to apply the innovation seen in the home to business. This is more than just looking for opportunities to make a buck with home technologies but fundamentally rethinking how innovation happens. The degree to which this somewhat humbling perspective shift takes hold will have significant impact on the bottom lines of tomorrow.
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That’s right — with all the twisting, flying, bumping, grinding, and acrobatic diving going on in each iPod ad, the damn thing still never manages to touch the ground. Ever.
Then again, the historic roll that Apple’s been on makes it a fair bit less shocking that they’ve added rewriting physics to their repertoire. You don’t need to look at the sales figures to know how well Apple’s doing, though. The fact that the regular checkout mob at the Apple store persisted this weekend in spite of the shuffle and mac mini being sold out says it all.
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Eleven million downloads in just over a month, notices in high profile media and, oh yeah, a quite nice two-page spread in the New York Times put together entirely through grass roots effort. It hasn’t been a bad few weeks for Mozilla Firefox.
Even though the folks at Mozilla HQ are well paid, it is gratifying to see that small contingent of folks (less than 20) marshaling a massive volunteer development effort so effectively. An effort that produces software on par with or better than that produced by the giants of the industry — and quality is beginning to pay off. Heck, it doesn’t hurt for me to see my name in lights either, albeit in the company of 10,000 of my best friends. ;-)
Wanna search for your name? Grab the full-sized ad or just buy the poster.
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Mozilla Firefox is airborne. The Foundation has outdone itself this time, producing a rock-solid product that is actually better than competing commercial offerings. It’s been a long strange trip from the initial dream to today’s release, but few can argue that Mozilla has finally arrived as a legitimate force in the software world. Big ups to Moz for figuring out the puzzle. Now if we could just figure out why a certain tech news source insists on calling them the Mozzarella Association…
For those just getting started with Firefox, a few tiny extensions can really change your browsing experience. Here are some classics:
- Sage — beautifully lightweight feed aggregator
- Create Shortcut — quickly create a shortcut to the current page on your desktop
- Adblock — never see another ad on the web again. Seriously
Props to all who have contributed. For the more technically-minded, Steve Garrity did a nice job of capturing the launch instant. Now, onward to Thunderbird and Sunbird!
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Model numbers are a curious thing. BMW 3, 5, 7, 8 series? What the heck do they have against 4 and 6? A similar mystery surrounds Palm’s naming convention for the high-end Tungsten models T3 and T5. That is, until today:
[W]hat happened to the T4? Answer: There never was one. Turns out the word “four” sounds like the word for death in some Asian languages. (Now that would be a big seller. “New from the U.S.A.: the beautiful new Tungsten Death!”) – David Pogue (NYT)
Tungsten Death? Tungsten of Death? Who doesn’t like the sound of that? Freakin’ suits, man! Oh, and why is it whenever I hear Tungsten, I think Thurston?
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Well, that didn’t take long! With the launch of the Firefox 1.0 Preview Release earlier this week, The Foundation posed a challenge to the Mozilla community at large: Can you evangelize Firefox to the point where there are one million downloads in ten days?
It took just four. As seen in previous challenges, it doesn’t take much to get the hardcore Mozilla community riled up. What this new challenge really crystalizes, though, is the power that community can wield in winning new converts. Seeing IE’s share of the developer market beginning to wane provides nice encouragement. IE’s progressive decent into security hell can’t hurt, either.
Depending on who you ask, Firefox is either on its way to market dominance or on the way down the toilet. Either way, though, Mozilla is doing a whole lot right. Good things are happening.
For more: Get Firefox, Get Thunderbird, Get Liberated!
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Microsoft built its moral case against antitrust allegations on the argument that restricting their business practices would be restricting their freedom to innovate. The dream goes something like this: After a favorable settlement is reached between the DOJ and Microsoft, Microsoft’s future will be all about enjoying the unfettered ability to innovate, newly validated by the courts. A stirring victory for the grass roots Freedom to Innovate Network!
Strange, then, the moves that have been made since — especially when it comes to Microsoft’s recent obsession with Google:
Instead of taking the lead in challenging Google, Billy’s boys waited for them to have the good ideas and fast-followed, as they’re wont to do. Where’s all this unbridled innovation they promised? It ain’t in their responses to Google’s products, that’s for sure. It doesn’t seem to be in their hoplessly bungled .NET strategy, either. As for Longhorn, we’ll see in 2006 or later…
After the DOJ settlement, then, everything was in place for innovation except, well, the fact that Microsoft don’t do innovation. Go figure.
For more, see Wired’s list, read Pride Before the Fall, or just get Longhorn now.
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