Archive
Category: Technology
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Digital avatars as risk-free social substitutes: Scruton
Philosopher Roger Scruton offers this Hegelian critique of our growing digital lives: This process of raising ourselves above the animal condition is crucial, as the Hegelians emphasized, to the growth of the human subject as a self-knowing agent, capable of entertaining and acting from reasons, and with a developed first-person perspective and a sense of… Read more →
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Survey finds free internet downloads primary music source for teenagers
A survey of 47 000 teenage internet users has found found that 33 per cent nominated ”downloading from the internet without paying” as their primary source of music. While this doesn’t necessarily imply piracy, it looks pretty grim for the content industries, and lends weight to previous surveys suggesting that a majority of adults had engaged… Read more →
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Romantic intermediaries and algorithmic normativity
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that online dating websites make algorithmic choices that strongly influence influence (and are tailored to) their users’ behaviour. But are they better? I asked Yagan whether OkCupid might try tailoring its algorithm to surface more statistically successful racial combinations. Such a measure wasn’t out of the question, he said. “Imagine we… Read more →
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Business broadband more important than water or gas: UK report
According to a report by English ISP XLN Telecom, access to broadband internet services is more important to small and medium-sized businesses than gas, water and other essential services. The survey, which contacted 657 small UK business owners, found that 77 per cent of respondents listed telephones as ‘essential to the running of their company,… Read more →
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Architecture as policy: EFF panel discussion
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted video from a great panel discussion on how platform architecture affects the rights and choices available to users. Cindy Cohen chairs the panel, which begins with a basic overview of Lessig’s ideas about code and policies, and moves through various stories which illustrate how decisions made during system design… Read more →
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Two views of the internet age
An inspiring, if somewhat zealously expressed, thought for the day from Wired magazine’s Kevin Kelly: Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third millennium, will be seen as another such era. In the years roughly coincidental with the Netscape… Read more →
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2008 Cybersecurity Year in Review — Part I: Data Security
It should come as no surprise that 2008 was an eventful year for online security pundits. Record instances of data breaches, identity theft, vulnerability disclosures and hotfixes were seen throughout the year. Both state and non-state actors were involved — on the public side, cyberwar in Georgia and alleged Chinese cyber-espionage; in the private sector,… Read more →
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Microsoft Announces Additions to Office Dictionary; W C Minor Turns in Grave
With Microsoft Word 2007 due for release later this year, the development team has recently been finalising the list of locale-specific words to be added to the default spelling dictionary. For this version, Microsoft has decided to expand the global lexicon, recognising such delightful (ahem) ‘Aussie’ slang as ‘bogan’, ‘sheila’, ‘bonza’ and ‘sickie’. Whether such… Read more →
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Microsoft sets Live Messenger Beta free
Microsoft revealed it will extend its VoIP service to cover 11 countries next week as it made its Windows Live Messenger Beta available for download today. Originally by The Register – Software, 2:21 PM Read more Read more →
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Google Shows New Services in Battle of Search Engines
Google introduced several services on Wednesday that draw on contributions from users to help identify popular Web sites. Originally by NYT > Technology, 1:41 PM Read more Read more →