CivicActions And FSF launch DefectiveByDesign.org

Today The Free Software Foundation and CivicActions launched the Campaign in Seattle at the Microsoft WinHEC conference. We had a great time with about 20 local Free Software and privacy advocates. We all dressed up in hazmat suits and handed out leaflets warning of the dangers of DRM to attendees of theWinHEC2006 conference. You can see pictures and video at Flickr YouTube If this is the kind of think that you think is important, blog about it, Digg it, delicious tag it, simpy tag it, etc, etc. If you know other folks who would be interested in writing about it, feel free to send them my way. We are going to do more events like this around the country, as well as other types of direct action and PR. Now go to DefectiveByDesign.org and sign up for the...

Craig’s List could be so much better

I have bitched about Craig’s List before, but i needed to blog this for once. The Seattle Craigslist covers way more than Seattle. It might as well be called Western Washington CL. I am trying to find a dresser. I only want something close by, but i get stuff in Tacoma, Renton, Edmonds. If CL simply had a zip code function, the utility of the site (and productivity of millions of Americans) would rise instantly. Basically, every posting on the classifieds would have a zip code field and the when searching you would be able to limit your search by zip code proximity. Now, while I am making suggestions for CL, i would add that things like bike and motorcycle listings have extra fields that spur the poster to indicate year, size, make, model, style etc of the bike or motorcycle. CL might have been amazing when it first broke onto the scene, but if you ask me, now it is an archaic technology that only has market...

Distributing the Future

I found this podcast, Distributing the Future via dorkbot, I think. Anyway, I listened to the Attention episode yesterday, and it is relevant to us and the way we work, and the work that we do. I think that everyone should listen to this particular episode, and I am hopeful about this podcast as a keeper in my itunes line...

Face recognition on your cameraphone?

This is by way of World Changing, Jamais Cascio quotes from <ahref=”http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825314.300&feedId=online-news_rss20″ target=”_blank”> an article in New Scientist Technology: The concept… is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken. […] …in tests Davis and his team found that by combining [facial recognition software] with context information the system could correctly identify people 60 per cent of the time. The context information can also be combined with image-recognition software to identify places within photos. 60% recognition? Not useful, yet — but that’s why it’s still in the labs and not on your phone. This is just the sort of thing that will get much better, much faster than some might expect. Get ready. I am not sure that I am particularly happy about this technological development. While I think that autotagging, particularly autogeotagging is pretty damn cool, the idea that some cellphone camera is going to know it just took a picture of me at street protest is pretty creapy. I know that we already live in a surveilance state and here in New York, the police photograph and video people from the skies and streets… but the idea that every cameraphone out there becomes part of this network that the government could tap into is downright...