Unleashing Open Source for Development in Africa

A few members of the Tech Horizons team are in Johannesburg, South Africa this week, launching a new IFTF program (Science In Place) at the XXV World Conference of the International Association of Science Parks.
I have been taking the opportunity to meet with a number of people who are trying to leverage open source technology to bridge the "digital divide" and spread computing and communications tools throughout the country and the entire continent.

Guerilla Media Wars

In 2006, we published a Ten Year Forecast perspective called "Dark Mobs". Among other things, that piece argued that repeated top-down efforts to squelch file sharing actually created powerful incentives that drove the technology towards more distributed, secure architecture. The media giants, by killing Napster and Gnutella created the need for something as difficult to control as BitTorrent.

"Shared folder" != copyright violation

After years of muscling fans into settlements and lawsuits over sharing folders of music on various P2P services, a judge has ruled that offering a "shared folder" of media does not constitute a copyright violation unless there is proof that an actual file changed hands.

From PC World:

Me Media

Earlier today, my colleague, Anthony Townsend, sent a note to Technology team members letting us know that he has started using a private del.icio.us account to keep his stuff “better organized and to use it for personal bookmarks” (this in addition to IFTF del.icio.us account that serves as a collective bookmarking site for everyone at IFTF. I've been using a private del.icio.us account for my stuff for a while, for the same reasons as Anthony. Others chimed in to say they also do this.

On Morning Edition

Cyrus Farivar quotes me at the end of his latest NPR Morning Edition piece, "High-Tech Pen Makes Note-Taking Easier." In my sound bite, I reveal that I like my Moleskine notebook because it's harder for me to break paper than the screen on my Nokia N95.

Media Execs Still Don't Get It

From CNet via ArsTechnica:

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BAVC Panel: DRM at World's End

I participated as a panelist at the Bay Area Video Coalition’s fourth in a series of four “Innovation Salons” last night. The title was “Scramble This, Ye Scurvy Dog!