- Toyota Manufacturing Principles (Joseph Cohen) — Jidoka: Automation with a Human Touch. The idea of jidoka is that humans should work with machines to produce the best possible outcome, leveraging the execution ability of a machine and the judgement of a human. We at O’R Radar have been saying for years that there’s gold in the collaboration between people and machines, about augmenting people and not simply replacing them.
- Twister — the fully decentralized P2P microblogging platform leveraging from the free software implementations of Bitcoin and BitTorrent protocols. Interesting to see BT and BC reused as platforms for app development, though if eventual consistency and threading Heisenbugs gave you headaches then just wait for the world of Bitcoin-meets-BitTorrent….
- Free Uncopyrighted NDA and Employment Contracts — CC0’d legalware.
- Transcript of Glenn Greenwald’s Speech to CCC — the relationship of privacy to security, and the transparency of governmental positions on that relationship, remain unaddressed. NSA’s actions are being used to establish local governmental control of the Internet, which will destroy the multistakeholder model that has kept net architecture and policy largely separate from the whims of elected officials. The fallout of Snowden’s revelations will shape 2014. Happy New Year.
"Edward Snowden" entries
Pursuing adoption of free and open source software in governments
LibrePlanet explores hopes and hurdles.
Free and open source software creates a natural — and even necessary — fit with government. I joined a panel this past weekend at the Free Software Foundation conference LibrePlanet on this topic and have covered it previously in a journal article and talk. Our panel focused on barriers to its adoption and steps that free software advocates could take to reach out to government agencies.
LibrePlanet itself is a unique conference: a techfest with mission — an entirely serious, feasible exploration of a world that could be different. Participants constantly ask: how can we replace the current computing environment of locked-down systems, opaque interfaces, intrusive advertising-dominated services, and expensive communications systems with those that are open and free? I’ll report a bit on this unusual gathering after talking about government.
Read more…
Four short links: 31 December 2013
Augmentation, Decentralised Platforms, CC0'd Legalware, and Greenwald Keynote Transcript
Radar podcast: the Internet of Things, PRISM, and defense technology that goes civilian
A strange ad from a defense contractor leads us to talk about technology transfer, and Edward Snowden chooses an unnecessarily inflammatory refuge.
On this week’s podcast, Jim Stogdill, Roger Magoulas and I talk about things that have been on our minds lately: the NSA’s surveillance programs, what defense contractors will do with their technology as defense budgets dry up, and a Californian who isn’t doing what you think he’s doing with hydroponics.
Because we’re friendly Web stewards, we provide links to the more obscure things that we talk about in our podcasts. Here they are.
- As the Vietnam War wound down, Boeing dabbled in both futuristic and not-so-futuristic public transit systems.
- In his farewell address, Dwight Eisenhower anticipated the rise of a military-industrial complex–a permanent, infrastructural presence for military contractors. In his “Chance for Peace” address, also very moving, Eisenhower enumerated the costs of military preparedness: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
- The Guardian interviewed Edward Snowden on video in Hong Kong, where he has fled to avoid prosecution for leaking the NSA PowerPoint deck that has caused a firestorm.
- A programmer has linked Arduinos with hydroponics to optimize growth patterns.
- For an overview of how software and industry might come together, take a look at my research report on the industrial internet, including a bit of background on Sight Machine, which makes quality control software for factories. (Full disclosure: O’Reilly’s sister firm, O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, has become an investor in Sight Machine since I wrote the report.)
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