- European mobile operators say big sites need to pay for users’ data demands (Guardian) — it’s like the postal service demanding that envelope makers pay them because they’re not making enough money just selling stamps. What idiocy.
- Grace Programming Language — language designers working on a new teaching language.
- Gawker Media’s Entire Database Hacked — 1.5M usernames and passwords, plus content from their databases, in a torrent. What’s your plan to minimize the harm of an event like this, and to recover? (via Andy Baio)
- Macmillan Do Interesting Stuff (Cameron Neylon) — have acquired some companies that provide software tools to support scientists, and are starting a new line of business around it. I like it because it’s a much closer alignment of scientists’ interests with profit motive than, say, journals. Timo Hannay, who heads it, runs Science Foo Camp with Google and O’Reilly.
ENTRIES TAGGED "net neutrality"
FCC contest stimulates development of apps to help keep ISPs honest
The winners of the FCC's Open Internet challenge provide consumers with new tools to monitor ISPs.
The FCC Open Internet Challenge stimulated the creation of a new mobile application that enables consumers to analyze the performance of their mobile broadband network. Combined with the other two winners of the challenge, consumers now have better tools to measure their Internet service.
What lies ahead: Net Neutrality
Tim O'Reilly on the future of smartphones and the realities of net neutrality.
Tim O'Reilly recently offered his thoughts and predictions for a number of areas we cover here on Radar. In this segment he looks at the future of smartphones and he explains why the realities of spectrum capacity will shape net neutrality.
Steve Wozniak on the FCC and Internet freedom
For Steve Wozniak, the issue of an open Internet is personal.
After penning an open letter to the FCC on net neutrality, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made a surprise appearance at the Federal Communication Commission's public hearing on new open Internet rules.
Four short links: 13 December 2010
Mobile Clawback, Language Design, Gawker Hacked, and Science Tools
Four short links: 6 December 2010
.bas Scripts, Net Neutrality, Open Harrassment, and iOS Blog
- Apple I Basic as Mac OS X Scripting Language — great hack. The “apple1basic” executable is a statically recompiled version of the original binary. All code is running natively. It plugs right into UNIX stdin and stdout. You can pass it the filename of a BASIC program to run. You can run BASIC programs like shell scripts. (via Hacker News)
- How to Discredit Net Neutrality — the Level3-Comcast dispute isn’t as straightforward as you might think (or as I implied). Increasingly, advocates of net neutrality have pegged their case to a larger and more powerful role for FCC regulation in the internet industry. And thus the net neutrality debate, instead of focusing on developing new institutional arrangements to preserve internet freedom on BOTH the demand and supply side, descends into a replay of the early 1980s, Reagan-era punch and judy show between democrats and republicans, with one arguing for “more government” and the other for “less government.” Neither talking much sense about what the government should actually do. There’s a missing discussion here about competition preventing carrier abuses, competition that the US lacks.
- The Dark Side of Open Source Conferences (Val Aurora) — A good first step is for conferences and communities to adopt and enforce explicit policies or codes of conduct that spell out what kind of behavior won’t be tolerated and what response it will get. Much in the way that people don’t stop speeding unless they get speeding tickets, or that murder is totally unacceptable to most people but laws against it still exist, harassment at conferences may seem obviously wrong, but stopping it will require written rules and enforceable penalties.
- iDev Blog-a-Day — love the layout and the content’s good too.
Four short links: 30 November 2010
Git Library, Uncocked Open Data, Role of Editorial, and Network Neutrality Salvo
- libgit2 — a linkable git library. Ruby and Python bindings.
- Open Data: How Not to Cock It Up — Tom Steinberg lays it out.
- Algorithm and Crowd are Not Enough — My point isn’t that Google, Netflix, Amazon, Yelp or any of the others are doomed. But I do think there’s an opportunity brewing for entrepreneurs, websites and companies to add editorial components to the algo-crowd paradigm. O’Reilly’s business is built on editorial value, whether in book selection or conference creation. We obviously see a continued role for editorial presence. (via John Battelle on Twitter)
- Level 3 vs Comcast (Denver Post) — first shakedown from the carriers. Without mandated neutral carriers, the Internet will dissolve into a fiefdom of consolidated big players willing to pay the shakedowns of the telco goons.
The distinctions and controversies of net neutrality
A new wiki sorts out network neutrality's signal and noise.
"Network Neutrality: Distinctions and Controversies" appears to be the first disciplined attempt to distinguish the various definitions of network neutrality and the practices it is supposed to stop.
FCC.gov poised for an overdue overhaul
FCC managing director Steven VanRoekel on participation and building platforms.
The Federal Communications Commission is prepping a significant reboot of its website. In this interview, FCC managing director Steven VanRoekel explains how citizen participation and open government are shaping the new FCC.gov.
The network neutrality debate: It all depends on what you fear
Network neutrality confuses a lot of laypeople because of all the different levels on which it's being argued and the opposing ways language is used by different
participants. Andy Oram takes a look at the loaded words in the net neutrality debate.
Four short links: 12 August 2010
Network Neutrality, Open Data, Science Policy, and the Android Army
- A Review of Verizon and Google’s Net Neutrality Proposal (EFF) — a mixture of good and bad, is the verdict. I am ready to give Google credit for getting Network Neutrality back on the regulatory agenda, whether or not this proposal was a strawman.
- Ten Principles for Opening Up Government Information (Sunlight Foundation) — We have updated and expanded upon the Sebastopol list and identified ten principles that provide a lens to evaluate the extent to which government data is open and accessible to the public. The list is not exhaustive, and each principle exists along a continuum of openness. The principles are completeness, primacy, timeliness, ease of physical and electronic access, machine readability, non-discrimination, use of commonly owned standards, licensing, permanence and usage costs.
- What If the Web Really Worked for Science? Reimagining Data Policy and Intellectual Property (video) — a talk by James Boyle on IP and science policy.
- Winners of the Apps for Army Challenge — more Android apps than iPhone in the winners. (via Alex)
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