Archive for: May 2009

On Nov 11 2008, Stanford campus radio personality Robert Harrison interviewed Vint Cerf on his KZSU program “Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature)”. Vint recalls his youth as a Stanford undergraduate before describing the genesis of the IP/TCP protocol and prognosticating on the Internet’s future, including Google’s role. He also speculates on time travel, infinite longevity via cyborg integration, and other exotic topics.

Audio

May 26 2009: Mitch Kapor writes:

I’m excited to let everyone know I’ve taken on a new responsibility as Board Chair of OneWebDay. OneWebDay is an annual, global event which is celebrated every September 22. Much like Earth Day, which inspired it, OneWebDay provides an opportunity for communities to celebrate the power of Web for positive change, to take action to protect what is precious about it, and to educate the public and policymakers on how the Web works.

The major news I have to report is that OneWebDay has new institutional support, new leadership and a new theme for 2009.

Paul Twomey, soon to end his term as CEO of ICANN, recently spoke with the SF Chronicle. He discusses many current issues including TLD expansion, the coming end to the Joint Project Agreement with the US Govt, and the transition to IPv6. Article | Audio.

Audio and video of Richard Stallman’s recent speech Community vs. Copyright at NYC’s Cardozo School of Law can be found here. Stallman argued that the current copyright regime is incongruous in the digital age, and no longer serves the public interest. He suggested solutions that included new classifications of works and massively reducing the protection period.

At the recent Free Press Summit” in Washington DC, FP Research Director S. Derek Turner addressed the topic of Internet Policy. His theme, detailed in his report Dismantling Digital Deregulation: Toward a National Broadband Strategy, was that the deregulatory policies in the 1976 Telecom Act, intended to increase competition, have been so abused by the incumbents as to have had the opposite effect. He argues that the public interest can only be served by a corresponding tilt back into regulation. Transcript | Audio. | Video is below.

May 7 2009: The New York State Senate today launched a new website at http://www.nysenate.gov/. The media-rich site includes a live video feed (provided via the free service Mogulus). The site has a blog and an RSS feed. The Senate also has its own YouTube channel, Facebook page, and twitter account. Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith’s introduction to the site is below:

The Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) welcomes David Bollier to speak at NYU on May 18 2009. David will talk about the themes of his new book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (New Press). The book is the first comprehensive history of the “free culture” movement and “sharing economy” that is empowering ordinary people, disrupting markets and changing politics and culture. Bollier will talk about the rise of free and open source software, Creative Commons licenses, the new forms of non-market creativity (Wikipedia, blogs, remix music, videos) as well as fascinating innovations in open science, open education and “open business models.”

When: Monday 18 May 2009 – 7pm
Where: Courant Institute
251 Mercer Street (Warren Weaver Hall)
Room 109
(entrance on W. 4th St)
The public is welcome (photo id required).