Dadamotive: Hyperconnectivity: July 2009 Archives

Merkel follows Sarkozy

Posted by Herman | July 24 | 2009 10:01 PM | permalink

The French government is an agressive defender of the interests of "Big Content". The infamous "HADOPI" law also known as "three-strikes-you-are-out" is being pushed incessantly, even against the will of the courts in France and the European Parliament.

A leaked draft of a strategy paper of the designated old and new German ruling party CDU describes the web as "unlegislated space" and announces a similar approach as "three-strikes-you-are-out" in Germany in case they will gain majority again in the coming elections in september. They also announce extra copyright protection for newspapers. Seems like Merkel has decided to follow Sarkozy in the dead-end road to unlimited and excessive copyright laws.

Wir möchten nach britischem und fransösischem Vorbild Rechtsverletzungen effektiv unterbinden, indem die Vermittler von Internetzugängen Rechtsverletzer verwarnen und nötigenfalls ihre Zugänge sperren.

Es ist eine gemeinsame Aufgabe von Politik und Verlagen, verstärkt das Bewusstsein für den Wert und die Relevanz von Zeitungen und Zeitschriften in der Gesellschaft als Kulturgut zu verankern. Im Online-Bereich dürfen die Verlage nicht schlechter gestellt werden als andere so genannte Werkvermittler. Falls erforderlich werden wir ein eigenes Leistungsschutzrecht für Verlage zum Schutz der Presseprodukte im Internet schaffen.

Augmented

Posted by Herman | July 21 | 2009 11:43 PM | permalink

We associate data-goggles with 3D-movies, entertainment. But BMW shows us how to think differently, how IT can help us with intuitive support, augmenting reality. As with the "Sixt Sense", a great indicator of how our future might very well become.

(Hat tip Dirk)

Follow the moon

Posted by Herman | July 21 | 2009 4:49 PM | permalink

As the number of datacenters with more and more "cloud" computing grows, energy consumption and cooling costs become a major cost factor.

Google seems to have very bold strategy as GigaOm notices. The Datacenter knowledge center has identified their strategy to locate a datacentre in a location where cooling costs are virtually zero for the better part of the year.

The most interesting part is the ability to automatically shift the workload to another datacentre based on the weather forecast (hot weather over here, cold weather over there). The next step is to 'follow the moon": the computation is shifted to datacentres which experience the night. A wave of computation in a 24 hrs cycle. Google can do it with their extensive privately owned worldspanning optical network.

Neat trick: it will also lower the electricity costs because there is excess capacity at night (usually).

Where to get the password of a deceased loved one?

Posted by Herman | July 01 | 2009 5:30 PM | permalink

Cory Doctorow investigates in the Guardian the really hard question. It is wise to protect your digital data with encryption. But what happens if you pass away? How will your loved ones be able to access the encrypted data?

But what if I were killed or incapacitated before I managed to hand the passphrase over to an executor or solicitor who could use them to unlock all this stuff that will be critical to winding down my affairs - or keeping them going, in the event that I'm incapacitated? I don't want to simply hand the passphrase over to my wife, or my lawyer. Partly that's because the secrecy of a passphrase known only to one person and never written down is vastly superior to the secrecy of a passphrase that has been written down and stored in more than one place. Further, many countries's laws make it difficult or impossible for a court to order you to turn over your keys; once the passphrase is known by a third party, its security from legal attack is greatly undermined, as the law generally protects your knowledge of someone else's keys to a lesser extent than it protects your own.