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Review: Everyware by Adam Greenfield
This is the first book review I’ve done on this blog, though it won’t be the last. In a sense, this is less of a conventional review than an attempt to discuss some of the ideas in the book, and...
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Freedom to Tinker – The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?
At Freedom to Tinker, David Robinson asks whether, in a world where DRM is presented to so many customers as a benefit (e.g. Microsoft’s Zune service), the public as a whole will be quite happy to...
View ArticleThe Privacy Ceiling
Scott Craver of the University of Binghamton has a very interesting post summarising the concept of a ‘privacy ceiling’: “This is an economic limit on privacy violation by companies, owing to the...
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‘Carmakers must tell buyers about black boxes’
According to Reuters, “The [US] government will not require recorders in autos but said on Monday that car makers must tell consumers when technology that tracks speed, braking and other measurements...
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Spiked: When did ‘hanging around’ become a social problem?
Josie Appleton, at the always-interesting Spiked, takes a look at the increasing systemic hostility towards ‘young people in public places’ in the UK: ‘When did ‘hanging around’ become a social...
View ArticleSome links: miscellaneous, pertinent to architectures of control
Ulises Mejias on ‘Confinement, Education and the Control Society’ – fascinating commentary on Deleuze’s societies of control and how the instant communication and ‘life-long learning’ potential (and, I...
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Transcranial magnetic stimulation
An image from Hendricus Loos’s 2001 US patent, ‘Remote Magnetic Manipulation of Nervous Systems’ In my review of Adam Greenfield‘s Everyware a couple of months ago, I mentioned – briefly – the work of...
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Locking users in by making it difficult to leave
Privacy International has a report, ‘Dumb Design or Dirty Tricks?‘ on the practice of a number of popular websites – most notably eBay and Amazon – of lacking an easy or obvious way for a user to...
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Countercontrol: blind pilots
In a recent post, I discussed a Spiked article by Josie Appleton which included the following quote: “Police in Weston-super-Mare have been shining bright halogen lights from helicopters on to youths...
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Review: We Know What You Want by Martin Howard
A couple of weeks ago, Martin Howard sent me details of his blog, How They Change Your Mind and book, We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind, published last year by Disinformation. You can...
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Review: Made to Break by Giles Slade
Last month I mentioned some fascinating details on planned obsolescence gleaned from a review of Giles Slade‘s Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Having now read the book for...
View ArticleBBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside
From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’: “Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas. But while the use of surveillance...
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Bruce Schneier : Architecture & Security
Bruce Schneier talks about ‘Architecture and Security’: architectural decisions based on the immediate fear of certain threats (e.g. car bombs, rioters) continuing to affect users of the buildings...
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Coincidence?
A few minutes ago I was playing a track in Winamp, with Gmail open in an Opera window, and on refreshing Gmail, the Google ‘web clip’ at the top of the inbox display contained the same phrase, ‘jet...
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West Coast code meets Far East code
Thanks to Mr Person at Text Savvy, I’ve just learned that this blog is blocked in China: Images from the Great Firewall of China test. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. From a censorship point of...
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Smile, you’re on Countermanded Camera
Image from Miquel Mora’s website We’ve looked before at a number of technologies and products aimed at ‘preventing’ photography and image recording in some way, from censoring photographs of...
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Review: Architecture as Crime Control by Neal Katyal
Review: Katyal, N. K. “Architecture as Crime Control”, Yale Law Journal, March 2002, Vol 111, Issue 5. Professor Neal Kumar Katyal of Georgetown University Law School, best-known for being...
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Pretty Cuil Privacy
New search engine Cuil has an interesting privacy policy (those links might not work right now due to the load). They’re apparently not going to track individual users’ searches at all, which, in...
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On ‘Design and Behaviour’ this week: Do you own your stuff? And a strange...
GPS-aided repo and product-service systems Ryan Calo of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society brought up the new phenomenon of GPS-aided car repossession and the implications for the concepts of...
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The Convention on Modern Liberty
Britain’s supposedly on the verge of a summer of rage, and while like Mary Riddell I am of course reminded of Ballard, it’s not quite the same. I don’t think this represents the ‘middle class’ ennui...
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