Technology

Friday, March 22, 2002

• The free ride comes to an end

CNN.com is phasing out free access to streaming video clips and will charge users up $39.95 to watch such news clips on their computers, USA Today reports. This is a trend no Net user welcomes, but it is inevitable as sites desperate to turn a profit start charging for services. The questions: What will users pay for? And how much? I know firsthand there are some users who get angry when asked to pay for anything -- such as archives -- but these folks are not realistic. What are you willing to pay for on the Web?

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• Your digital rights, part 2

Here's a followup to Wednesday's NetRunner item about DigitalConsumer.org. CNET News.com interviewed Joe Kraus, a founder and former exec at Excite.com. who helped establish the advocacy group. DigtalConsumer.org is fighting efforts by Hollywood and the recording industry to further tighten copyright laws at the expense of consumers because the entertainment titans don't have a clue how to respond to the challenges posed by digital technology. Kraus tells News.com, "What is really happening here is that media companies are trying to create a new business model that charges consumers to have their personal-use rights back, and I think that's wrong."

Sen. Ernest Hollings is leading the charge to restrict consumers' copying rights with the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act that would regulate PCs, handhelds and MP3 players, according to Wired News.

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• A blogging debate

I'm going to stay out of this fight, but there's a debate raging in the online world about this new form of writing called blogging. On the two extremes are the so-called amateurs who support themselves with day jobs and publish blogs at night and loosely defined pros who write and report for a living. Self-described technologist and writer Paul Boutin captures the silliness of the debate pretty well in this blog entry.

Boutin's take: "Columnists envy the freedom and hipness of bloggers, who in turn envy the huge readerships and paid-to-blog careers of columnists."

I'll agree with that.

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Thursday, March 21, 2002

• This will drive the privacy crowd nuts

I promised myself when I started this weblog I would avoid the temptation to over-link to The New York Times, but here's a story (registration required) about what can be gleaned from modern drivers' licenses that's downright scary. I don't get as worked up about privacy issues as some folks. (I'm really not too worried about Stop 'n Shop knowing what my favorite breakfast cereal is or the kind of deodorant I prefer.) But it's another story when you're talking about what taverns I might frequent.

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• Don't these people talk?

Rhode Island Secretary of State Edward Inman took pride today in announcing his office has made available online nearly 1,600 rules and regulations issued by state agencies that previously had been stored in 20 cardboard boxes. That's certainly a positive step forward in a state that has lagged behind most other states' e-government efforts.

But how about a little coordination between the state's various Web fiefdoms? You can find the rules and regulations site at www.rules.state.ri.us/rules (who's going to remember that address?) or via a link to it at www.state.ri.us, the site for the secretary of state's office.

The average user, however, will probably start out at what is supposed to be the state's portal site, RI.gov. Good luck to them! I went there and, as of late afternoon, could find nothing about Inman's new site on either the homepage or even the portal's laws and regulations page.

But I did find an invitation to state Chief Information Officer Barbara Weaver's retirement party -- on March 1.

P.S. A quick call to the secretary of state's office indicated that the new site's listing should be added to the state portal site soon.

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• Web vanity

Here's a new twist on a favorite Rhode Island topic: license plates. The Internet License Plate Gallery displays vanity plates for the dot-com crowd. Some of the my favorites: California HTTPWWW, Massachusetts TCP IP, and Rhode Island BITMAP belonging to Jennifer Bergeron, a Web designer and artist living in Smithfield.

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• After 9/11 photo exhibit

Since Sept. 13, Joel Meyerowitz has been the only photographer granted unimpeded access to Ground Zero in New York. Meyerowitz is creating a photo archive documenting the destruction and recovery for The Museum of the City of New York. A U.S. State Department-sponsored exhibition of 28 photos from the project is available at www.911exhibit.com.

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Wednesday, March 20, 2002

• What is this?

A weblog? A blog? A plain old column? I'm not exactly sure myself, but for now let's call this a weblog, a new form of writing unique to the Internet.

I'll refer you to others for a detailed explanation, but, in short, weblogs combine brief, diary-like postings and commentary with links to other places on the Net that the author finds interesting. The best weblogs also take advantage of the Net's interactive quality and give readers a chance to offer their feedback.

The plan here is to point projo.com readers to new developments, trends and ideas on the Web. I can't claim to be a Net expert, pioneer or trendsetter. I'm just a regular Web user who has the good fortune of having a job that allows -- even demands -- that I spend a chunk of my work day just plain browsing. Or, as the title above suggests, running around the Net.

I bought my first computer -- a used Mac Classic for $600 -- back in 1993 and went online a few months later. I didn't start working in the online news field until 2000, just as the first wave started to crash. But I'm still standing, and I remain convinced the Web and digital technology will continue to revolutionize both our lives and how we get our news.

There should be new postings anytime I'm working. (Usually, that will be Monday through Friday.) So make sure you check back and let me know what you think.

Now, let's get going.

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• Your digital rights

The freedom to "time shift," "space shift" and make backup copies would be written into the law if a new consumer advocacy group launched last week has its way. DigitalConsumer.org is fighting back against Hollywood and the recording industries' efforts to restrict how you use legally-purchased music and movies. The group is pushing to enact a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights it says would counteract copyright law changes that are stripping away consumers' rights. The right to "time shift" would ensure consumers can record a television show and watch it later. The freedom to "space shift" media would allow copying of CD to a an MP3 player.

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• Baking cookies at the CIA

If you visited the CIA's Electronic Reading Room in the last few months, you probably left with more than you bargained for. A Texas nonprofit group, Public Information Research, last week complained to the CIA it found the site was tagging visitors with an electronic cookie identifying users' Internet protocol addresses and giving them unique ID numbers. The group complained the practice violated the federal government's privacy policy, and the CIA discontinued it on Monday.

A CIA spokesman told Newsbytes.com that an agency contractor added the cookies feature during a recent redesign of the site and that the CIA was unaware the tracking files on visitors' computers.

Believe that one?

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• My Wi-Fi future

I've recently taken an interest in Wi-Fi networks and have been trying to read everything I can on this form of wireless Net access. Recently, The New York Times had a couple interesting articles on the topic. The first (registration required) explains the basics; the second explores a movement to weave together small Wi-Fi networks into a larger high-speed wireless network built from the ground up. In an audio clip, Times technology reporter Amy Harmon explains Wi-Fi -- aka 802.11.

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