The Android System is basically open, but to use it in any reasonable means (if you are not a true hacker), you need a Google Account for Mail, Maps, Market, etc. And this account isn’t just something but a unique identifier for Google to collect all of your information, your habits, and device usage in one basket. This enables them to send you highly profiled and personalized ads (which can be sold expensively, I guess).
While you personally could say, “I don’t mind”, it’s a problem for a lot of other service providers who are not able “to get through” to the customer because s/he is already tied to Google.
Additionally, the applications that enforce this strong Google Account/device connection are all proprietary, i.e. not open. Google is really serious about protecting the apps that as their series of “Cease and Desist” letters showed. And because they are so central for the Android OS, Lee Williams has a good point in claiming that Android itself is not really open. Neither concerning these central apps, nor for other service providers. Hopefully, his Symbian Foundation will keep this case in mind.
And again, it looks like a “the winner takes it all” attempt that’s one of the biggest factors of uneasiness in my mixed feelings towards Google.
The website of the interaction designer Martin Frey is represented by a fascinating favicon. It’s a rather simple matrix of grey and transparent pixels, his initials “MF” set to pure white. With the browser’s location bar usually set to white as well, the “MF” should remain invisible (at least until it gets displayed on the (in my case) grey background of a tab).
If I look onto the screen of my notebook under a very small angle, however, I can see the initials nevertheless – stunning! Even more surprisingly, I was not able to reproduce this “hologram effect” on my large flat screen or on my girl-friends notebook.
To me, it seems like a little secret hidden in an actually exposed but usually discarded place. Despite the strict commandments of the binary world to be either 1 or 0, smart and gentle (or even “in between”) notions still might be possible.
Another interesting favicon is used by SAP: It keeps on scrolling until the site is fully loaded – very nice!
A proposal for a new law faces a lot of controversy at the moment: The TKÜ (Law for the Surveillance of Telecommunication). Unfortunately, a lot of people are completely unaware and uninformed about the problems at hand — especially if they are not reading a lot of things online. I think, this is very problematic for two main reasons (a lot more can be found easily via the link in the corner of this site): the relation data stored is more sensitve than we might think and our believe that state authorities are good guys is not necessarily true.
Isn’t it all a minor problem as they are just storing the relational data (who with whom when and where) and don’t record e.g. the voice (they do but via another law)? Acutally, content is completely irrelevant: The whole field of Social Network Analysis strives to map entire social networks (you and your friends and their friends…) based on communication (one very good example is MIT’s Reality Mining Project). They can even estimate your general happiness: spending time with their friends usually makes people more content. As the analysis produces very concrete and specific patterns it is suited ideally for a pattern based search for criminals/terrorists. Especially “home grown terrorists” will have very sharp disruptions in their social life. All data sets should not only be stored but scanned carefully for suspicious behaviour if we want to take prevention seriously!
Still no problem because we don’t have to hide anything! We even stopped downloading files from dubious sources, so the copyright industry’s desires behind the law can’t harm us, either. But what if your friend becomes a suspect? Remember that you are linked with pretty much people with only six in between? I’m pretty sure you will find a true terrorist much closer in your “network”. And you can get a lock-in from prosecution authorities yourself, too! Visiting Afghanistan for whatever reason (relatives? NGO project?) is not a good idea, clearly, but probably not very likely for most of us, either. So Guantanamo is away far enough (you could get “extracted“, still) but serves as a first example why naively believing in the good state is a bad idea: While the U.S.A. can still be regareded a democracy and a constitutional state, all you know about that becomes irrelevant once you find yourself in “the camp”. No civil rights as you are outside the U.S. and of course Europe (if you consider yourself a civilian) and no rights from the Geneva Convention(if you consider yourself a soldier). No perspective to get heard by a lawyer, either.
For all Germans, there is a very recent example from at home: A sociologist working for Humboldt University, on cities in particular, got arrested for being part of a “terrorist community” (it’s all about communities…). It’s not that he really did something but that he was providing the “intellectual basis” for others — via his scientific research. Once you are suspected of terrorism you lose a lot of rights, e.g. talking to your attorney privately. It’s the attorney you need to get you out of prison, unfortunately.
While it is certainly necessary to provide security for the people, there are some limits that should be respected in order not to lose our freedom in tight situations.
On Nov, 6th, we can give our concerns a voice!
But instead of the website I got a smart advise by Google as you can see below:
(you can right-click “view image” for the better readable version, untill I have better skripts for that)
[edit]
I had my doubts with the Google warning but the ars-link was exactly the same, so I took it and found a very nice page, describing the film, trailer, and several articles linking to all the awards the film has won so far (siggraph et al.!) – as expected.
Did that site become “badware” by Google-algorithms? and
Why did Google/stopbadware not provide any “no badware” button as we know it from spam and everything?
[/edit]
To everyone who wants to know a little bit more about Russia, its political disposition, and the daily life there, I strongly recommend Ben Bidders Russenblog. He tries to work as a journalist, for sure one of the most exciting and often enough uneasy occupations to find there at the moment. How the press, independent press in particular, and all kinds of critical citzienship is handled by official representatives is a pure scandal.
A link in one of his posts led me to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, which published some photos (with frightening content). It was not on purpose, most probably, but at the time of my visit (07-05-26) the fotos got accompanied by a large ad, almost the size of the pictures themselves. While this is questionable enough, the picture’s caption establishes another link, describing the scenes as raw violence (”rohe Gewalt”). At least for me, raw is somehow associated with meat (> cat food).
This is just a small and simple experiment to see if i can attract a huge amount of spam for my newly installed gmail-account. The more I succeed in doing so, the better I will perform i a newly created game from the Digital Playground Class at FH Potsdam. Very intersting class, but for the bots only this link does count: my attractive replica site!
After some days of intense writing mostly done by Larissa, our first paper in our lives ever has been submitted! Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Abstract
We are exploring the use of small displays as an instrument to enhance social communication. Our focus is on encouraging communication between strangers by revealing the existence of common friends. In the following we present the concept of the SocialButton, a wearable mobile device which displays aspects of friend-of-a-friend networks. A group study has provided us with an initial understanding regarding the potential of the SocialButton to influence our social environment.
More backgrounds on the paper can be found in the archive and on Larissa’s blog, of course.
Are Computer Games evolving as their own medium, a new form of art and even as tool? Strong arguments for the autonomy of games were deliverd by a class at FU Berlin, Computer Games and Media Theory, that introduced the emerging field of Game Studies to me.
Economically, the production of computer games generates a much larger impact than the production of film for several years already. But gaming itself was still regarded as a waste of time. This does change a lot nowadays, as games get a tool in business processes i.e. you can earn money with it i.e. it suddenly turns out to be something very sensible to do. (best example: SecondLife). Plus, serious gaming tries to make use of our desire to play.
Beside these purely economic interests there is more and more evidence that gaming makes you think and gives your brain a good training for your everyday life as well as for some specialised tasks: fine motor skills for surgeons, faster reactions for sports and military, knowledge of economic correlations, just to mention some ideas. While trying to master a game, looking for workarounds – yes, cheating – even amplyfies our creative efforts and must be regarded as an approach of its own to games. As Reto Wettach (one of my professors at FH Potsdam) and Ralf Grauel mention in their talk at Typo Berlin 2006, a game offers a unique combination of joy and mental activity, offering ideal possibilities for the growth of neurons in our brain. They even come to the conclusion that we are on the way from the achievment- towards a play-oriented society: Being not only faster and better in a playful competition, but finally winning by being smarter!
Moreover, it seems to me to be a small proof for my opinion that our society is judging about life-styles, activities and projects way to fast and with little regard for other than fast-paying economic factors. The importance of games was evident to Schiller already (in his Aesthetical Education of Man) and we are, however, still far form his ideas today
For recent and recurring reasons I started to think about a “VPN bashing module” for our Master-Room in the fhp.
The vpn-client that became our only and obligatory access to the internet seems to have its own intelligence that acts according to plans beyond human understanding (maybe extraterrestrial). Every now and then he chooses a deliberate candidate to kick out of the network, sometimes followed by periods of denials to all attempts of reconnecting.
This is not only undermining the belief in the predictabilty and determination of technology but is also really making us mad and breaking up the holy work-flow. As the resulting aggression has to find a way out and is better deflected from the other inhabitants, a punching ball might serve that purpose. With some sensors built in and a computer with AutoHotkey running, a procedure to initate a reconnect should be easily available.
Plus: If vpn doesn’t reconnect at once one can keep punching the ball (really hard). Some other applications for that interaction principle might come to your mind as well.
