|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Richard Doherty: "By Christmas, Microsoft could become the nation's fourth-largest phone company."   One of the topics at last week's conference was the shadowy Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, a collaboration between Silicon Valley and Hollywood to make our personal computers work the way Hollywood wants them to. Dan Gillmor tried to get into the discussion group, but was turned away. Cory Doctorow works for the EFF and maintains the Consensus At Lawyerpoint weblog to cover the BPDG. He urges us to get in touch with Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Intel, etc and encourage them to keep making the kinds of computers we like, ones that copy our material from our desktops to servers, or include them as email attachments, or move pictures from our digital cameras to our hard drives (or servers) or distribute them through Gnutella. Anyway, I wonder if what's going on in that discussion group is legal. What if I wanted to start a computer or chip or OS company to compete with Intel or IBM or Microsoft that didn't follow their rules? If I can't, it seems they have an antitrust problem. Our legal system is set up so that no group of competitors that form a major portion of a market can meet and erect barriers that keep out newcomers. Intel is not a legislative body, neither is Time-Warner. I am not a lawyer, but if they want that kind of power, it seems they should get the laws changed first. The best defense is to flood the network with clearly non-infringing content, to follow Dr Lessig's lead, and make sure that all the good First Amendment bits are in the mix, ready to be shut down when these laws pass. Jake: "If we're too lazy, numb, frightened, or self-censored to ask the important questions and share what we learn with each other, we might as well sign over what's left of our civil rights right now. It will be a lot easier to lose them, than it will be to get them back." Amen. Madhu Menon: Why I love pop-up ads.  I'm back to work on the slideshow stuff. Glad I took a breather. After seeing lots of PowerPoint slideshows at the conference last week, I find the HTML stuff functional, but pretty plain-jane. Then I thought I should allow for the possibility of Flash renderings of slideshows. I need a Radio script that takes an OPML file and turns it, somehow, into a SWF file. Here's an example, if anyone wants to give it a try. I think it's actually a pretty important connection. Wouldn't it be great to have a boring technical slideshow on a background like this one. NY Times: "Last month Mr. de Icaza learned that Mr. Fox's government had signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Microsoft to train 23,000 computer technicians for the first round of community centers going online with e-México." As promised on the radio show, here are links to: Blogdex, Daypop, Radio UserLand, Manila. Ed Cone nails it. A professional reporter gives blogging a try, and becomes a better writer for it. Bing! Now, I wonder if the blogging universe can solve the Microsoft problem. We need a remedy that works. The judge doesn't like the one the states proposed. I didn't either. Too complicated, too messy. Imho, the only remedy that works is one that gains separation of the Web and Microsoft. A fantastic demo of triangulation. A bunch of Dot-Net developers have weblogs. One of them spotted something happening with the Mono project. Would I have a clue what it meant? No way. I watched the news percolate from one developer to another and they're all ack'ing it. So now I know something is happening. In the past, without such verification, I wouldn't have a clue. Three new ideas for evolution of RSS, pubDate, guid and ttl. Jon Udell's much-touted piece about RSS has appeared, and (oy) RSS is being cast as a proponent of REST. Let me say it again. Oy. It's just XML. Simple stuff. Easy to understand. No need to drag religion into it, but people always want to. The price of success I guess. FYI, here's the diff, imho, betw SOAP and RSS. One is a protocol, and the other is a format. A candidate for best named blog of 2002. An important medical alert from Adam Curry. Hey it's raining. In most parts of the world that wouldn't be a big deal. But here in Calif, it's dry season. Feels weird. And great. What kinds of computers were last week's conf attendees using? Scott Johnson is seeking help from Mac Radio users. Victor Ng's capsule review of Attack of the Clones: "I'd rather be chewing on tin foil." Business 2.0: How to go head-to-head with Microsoft. Paul Andrews: News by the People, for the People. NY Times: "Look, they've shown us that the book business can be a very nice, profitable business online," said Mark J. Rowen, a senior Internet analyst at Prudential Securities. "The only problem is the book, video, music market is limited, and ultimately if Amazon is going to justify its market capitalization, it is going to have to show that other categories are viable on the Internet. So far, they have not shown that sales of other merchandise can grow rapidly and be profitable." Another Jenett theme in the works. Screen shot. On this day last year: "We think we see something very valuable that few others do. The desktop computers of 2001 have a lot of untapped power. Couple that with the comfort level that people have with Web browsers, and that leads to a single point, that no one else seems to be aiming at." Smurf Turf was the codename for Radio 8. Dave on the radio   I'm going to be on a Canadian TV show, Dotto's Data Cafe, today at noon Pacific, with host Steve Dotto. They just called. I'll be on at about 12:15PM for three seven-minute segments. The show will not be webcast, however, if you're in Canada and want to scan it, send me an MP3 after the show and I'll put it on the site. I asked, it's OK with the producer. They're calling from Burnaby, which is near Vancouver. I told them we have a UserLander from Vancouver and he has a weblog. While the show is on the air they'll be showing the readers around on the Web. I expect I'll update one or two times to show the viewers that it's just me and I can put whatever I want here. |
 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
© Copyright 1997-2005 Dave Winer. The picture at the top of the page may change from time to time. Previous graphics are archived. Previous/Next |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
