Feeling silly
The Matrix runs on Windows
Everybody knows that The Matrix runs on UNIX, but what if it ran on Windows XP? “Looks like you are trying to bend a spoon with your mind. Have you tried realising the truth that there is no spoon?”
Games
The evils of virtual worlds
Yesterday was the official “bash virtual worlds” day in the UK press. With the launch of the latest World of Warcraft expansion (Wrath of the Lich King), news sources went overboard in the coverage of thousands of costumed geeks queuing outside Oxford Street’s HMV; at some point the game’s launch Read more…
Popular Culture
Not The New York Times
An expensive and complicated spoof of the New York Times has hit the streets of Manhattan (with accompanying website). The headlines offer something akin to a liberal wish-list, from the end of the PATRIOT Act, to the passing of a new law called the Safeguards for a New Economy (S.A.N.E.) Read more…
New technologies
QR Code
I’ve been playing with QR codes. If you have a mobile phone with a QR Reader, use your mobile phone camera on this picture. The word convergence keeps popping up in my head. Adding: You can also generate text:
Cases
Bilski: an end to stupid patents?
I finally got around to reading In Re Bilski (via Groklaw), the latest landmark case in the United States with regards to patentability issues. While abstract ideas are not patentable, ever since the case State Street, the U.S. has allowed mere abstractions as patentable subject matter if they produce a Read more…
Networks
Googleverse: Utopia or Dystopia?
It is a bit tired to say that Google’s stranglehold on the search engine market seems unshakeable. To offer a couple of ironic factoids, I found the accompanying image using Google Image Search, and this blog is published in Blogger, a Google-owned service. Many people have been warning us about Read more…
Globalisation
A progressive IP and IT policy in the US?
One of the defining characteristics of U.S. IP policy in the last 16 years has been an inevitable move towards stronger protection, while in IT the move has been towards laissez-faire deregulation of media. Many people politically classed as either liberal or progressive have come to expect nothing but bad Read more…
Announcements
SCRIPTed Conference CFP
“Governance Of New Technologies: The Transformation Of Medicine, Information Technology And Intellectual Property”An International Interdisciplinary Conference March 29-31, 2009University of Edinburgh CALL FOR PAPERS Those interested in presenting a paper at the “Governance of New Technologies” conference should email editors.scripted@ed.ac.uk. Authors should identify the conference title in the subject line Read more…
Web 2.0
User Generated Election
Congratulations are in order to American readers for bringing to a close the long and arduous election process, a truly remarkable result has been achieved. You will be hearing a lot about this in the next few days, but it is clear that the U.S. election has been one of Read more…
Open source
Open source invention
This is a very good article in the New York Times about publicising inventions via Web 2.0 tools like YouTube. The piece concentrates on Dr Johnny Chung Lee, a 28-year-old inventor who became a YouTube celebrity by posting Wii hacks, including how to make a muilti-touch whiteboard, and the mind-boggling Read more…