From The Guardian, a review of Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village by Richard Barbrook; and how we have been fooled by utopian visions of the future: Our expectations of technology are borne out of Cold War spin. The community-building projects of the digital world are celebrated for the abundance they make it possible to access and share; but what if the culture of a community only arises from jointly endured constraints? Tony Curzon Price explores a key paradox of the online age. Lost in cyberspace: The network society may ultimately lead to information overload, triviality, and loneliness. It's better in the flesh: Social networking sites don't foster meaningful communication. They are a complete waste of time. Is Wis.dm your next online obsession? Answer yes or no. This new social-networking site is based upon your responses to all kinds of questions.
From The Economist, a special section on technology, including an interview with Tom Standage, editor of Technology Quarterly. Genius and misfit aren’t synonyms, or are they? In Silicon Valley, where misfits rule, rejecting the received wisdom is commonly viewed as a path to creativity and wealth. A review of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy by Andrew Keen (and more). An interview with David Weinberger, author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.
From Business Week, Where Tech Got Its Start: The early quarters of tech giants like Hewlett-Packard and Apple could be must-see tourist spots for your grandkids. From Time, can Google get any bigger? We now use the #1 search engine as our main tool for navigating the web. But aside from search, Google still lags behind Yahoo! and MySpace. Private Parts, Public Streets: Google hits the streets. Will we get screwgled? From Wired, thanks to Google Earth's Street View, the paranoids don't seem so paranoid anymore; and researchers chart the internet's "Black Holes", the more than 10 percent of the internet that flickers out like a candle every day.
Law enforcement cannot stop spam with periodic high-profile busts, or with sentences greater than those received by rapists or murderers. Unfortunately, there's no quick fix, and we should search for something other than these symbolic incarcerations. Scamming the Spammers: Internet spammers are creative, but so are the people devoted to catching them. How many ways can you spell V1@gra? Spam mutates, and the Internet community mounts an immune response.
