News today that Paramount and CBS -- the owners of Star Trek -- are suing the makers of Axanar, an independent Star Trek film. This is no ordinary fan film. Instead, it is a productiont that has received more than $1 million in crowdfunding. Moreover, it is not intended for commercial release. It will be …
Who should control your car's software
Cory Doctorow has an interesting piece in The Guardian on the ability of car owners/users to alter the software in their car. That is the broad issue but of course he writes about it in the context of the coming autonomous vehicles. Doctorow begins by throwing out the red herring that is the trolley problem …
How to generate a Golden Age: TV Edition
When we think of Golden Ages it is looking back and realising that things were better during some period of time; we just never realised it at the time. But we are currently living in a Golden Age of Television. It is better than at any point in its history. And what is more, we …
Free content and net neutrality
One of the unintended consequences of the push towards net neutrality has been that it appears to preclude deals that allow some content to be provided freely. Such deals have been done for, say, Wikipedia but the latest issue has arisen with regard to Facebook's internet.org. India's Telecom Regulatory Authority has ordered Reliance Communications -- …
Of Homo Economicus and Superintelligence
Last week I had the pleasure of being a commentator on Nick Bostrom's talk at the star studded Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence conference held at the University of Toronto. Bostrom is the author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies and was the subject of a massive New Yorker profile the other week. Both …
How the Internet Became Commercial: YouTube and Podcast.
If you prefer to watch or listen to material, we have a video and podcast for you. Here is a talk at Google's facilities in Boston, shown on YouTube. Here is a podcast, hosted by Andre Fradkin, at MIT. Please enjoy!
Integrity and body cameras
An interesting opinion by Sarah Lustbader in the New York Times today. She argues that police body cameras are just a first step towards accountability but the camera data has to reside in a trusted third party to be of real use. But as currently implemented, body camera programs in the United States too often …
Digitopoly 