Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Internet Law at Harvard University, thinks that one solution would be to create a new type of “mesh network” – where phones find a way to connect to each other when regular connections go down. Apps could be built in these networks, which allow civilians with resources that connect with and help others.
via BBC – Future – Technology – Phone-powered mesh networks to connect in a crisis.
Regular contributor and Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain his take on drones and their unintended consequences.
via Measuring the unintended consequences of drones | Marketplace.org.
Telecom regulators don’t usually have public followings, except perhaps among other telecom regulators. But as soon as rumors began circulating that Julius Genachowski planned to resign as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission FCC, petitions appeared on sites like BoingBoing, Reddit, and Daily Kos calling on President Barack Obama to appoint a 50-year-old law professor and former administration official named Susan Crawford as Genachowski’s successor. It’s not hard to see why she has acquired an enthusiastic fan base in these precincts of the Internet. With an appealing blend of earnestness and feistiness, Crawford is set on turning the sorry state of broadband and wireless services in the United States into the biggest populist outrage since Elizabeth Warren went after the banks.
via Susan Crawford: High-speed Internet’s Elizabeth Warren | New Republic.
When The Associated Press appeared to tweet Tuesday that there were two explosions in the White House, we were right to believe the news, even though it turns out that the AP Twitter account had been hacked. There were no explosions; the tweet was false. But believing the AP is not where we went wrong. Our occasional believing false reports should awaken us to the dangers of literalism.
Kit Walsh, a lawyer at the Cyberlaw Clinic, says that challenging that particular patent is not really about chocolate, but about the idea that chocolate is just another material that can be melted and later solidified into new shapes. “If you let people get patents on every material that has those properties, you’re going to occupy 3D printing,” he said over the phone from Cambridge, MA.
via 3D printing chocolate is a cool idea, and someone is trying to patent it – Quartz.
To Judith Donath, a faculty fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Friday’s regional lockdown had one clear result: the creation of a widespread, unified community during an event that, not too long ago, would have left many feeling alone, isolated, and more than a little worried.
Like many of us, and especially those of us staying off the streets of Boston, I’ve been not knowing things all day. That’s because I’ve been watching the mainstream media as well as my favorite social media. It turns out that not knowing something reveals its own kind of truth.
Kenny Whitebloom, project coordinator at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society who works on the DPLA planning initiative, said these apps are in their infancy, and that DPLA plans to encourage their development via future hackathons and open calls to code.
via A Digital Library for Everyone | American Libraries Magazine.
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of law and computer science at Harvard, joins Marketplace Tech host to explain how the computer program works and whether it measures up to the human eye.
via Would you rather have a teacher or a computer grade your schoolwork? | Marketplace.org.
But, here’s the rub: it’s hard to identify those dangerous applications. And, once you do, it’s even harder to find the right information to challenge those applications during the window that the law allows. So we partnered with the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and Ask Patents and—most importantly—you.
via EFF and Partners Challenge Six 3D Printing Patent Applications | Electronic Frontier Foundation.