Into Tech

I don’t think I’ve ever had more people send me a single blog post than a blog post from earlier this week by Rebecca MacKinnon discussing her worries about “Silicon Valley’s benevolent dictators.” It’s an interesting read that brings up some excellent points. It starts off pointing out the rather insular view many folks have in Silicon Valley about “the rest of the world” and the sort of hubris that comes out of the Valley on a regular basis. That, of course, is nothing new, and is a criticism that has been leveled at Valley inhabitants for many, many years. And, indeed, there is a “clubby” nature to Silicon Valley at times, that has both good and bad sides to it.

MacKinnon points out, correctly, that Silicon Valley-ites also tend to put blind faith into the idea that technology = freedom, and freedom = good, in a rather libertarian sense. Again, that’s been said before. But then she points out something of a contradiction in all of this libertarianism, by noting that in fighting against any government regulation while putting all our faith in technology, we actually end up with a system of “benevolent dictators” made up of the folks who control the technology we put our faith in. That is, she worries that in rejecting government regulation, we’ve approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in. In some sense, this is channelling Jonathan Zittrain’s pessimism about what happens when those benevolent dictators turn away from benevolence.

Basically, what both MacKinnon and Zittrain are pointing out is that technology is just a tool. It can be used for good or for bad purposes, and it’s part of Silicon Valley’s hubris to assume that good will automatically win out in the end. That is, we’ve been mostly blessed, because the people putting such tools into practice are doing it for good (benevolent) reasons, but there’s always a risk that someone else will do something much worse with it. It’s a fantastic point, and one well worth thinking about, but I think the assumptions are a little bit wrong.

It’s not necessarily a blind faith that “technology” and “capitalism” are flat out “good,” but more a recognition that an expanding market tends to open more opportunities for everyone, and the end result of that expansion is good at a macro level. Capitalism tends to remove the barriers for growth, while technology (or, more specifically following Paul Romer’s thesis, “ideas”) are what then creates that growth. Capitalism is about removing the barriers, and technology and ideas are about enabling that growth. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t downsides to both — but the net gain does appear. And, one thing that has become incredibly clear throughout history is that it’s nearly impossible to take away that net gain once it appears. And, conversely, asking the government to create those net gains instead almost always fails, due to the difficulty in accurately regulating a market.

In other words, by removing the barriers and enabling the potential, you’ve almost guaranteed that when someone tries to use the tools for less-than-benevolent reasons, it only opens up strong demand for someone else to provide the equivalent (or better) in a benevolent way again. And, at the same time, in asking the gov’t to manage the benevolence, you almost guarantee less opportunities to actually provide good tools, because you’ve added hurdles they need to jump through. Yes, there can be bumps in the road — and, no, it’s not always a fun process along the way. But enabling for growth is not blind faith. And, there are plenty of checks and balances in place that should these “benevolent dictators” turn authoritarian instead, the end result (or “revolt” as the case may be) can often be strong enough to deal with it.

So, yes, there may be some benevolent dictators in Silicon Valley — but they’d be hard pressed to successfully ditch that benevolence without paying a huge price.

Related to this, I’ve recently been doing a presentation for various corporate execs (almost all from outside the US) on “What Makes Silicon Valley Silicon Valley.” It’s probably my favorite presentation, because it’s fun and it usually challenges a lot of the assumptions many people have about why Silicon Valley has been so successful for so long — that is, while it discusses some of the “common” reasons, it focuses more attention on the hidden, unexpected and accidental reasons for why Silicon Valley became what it did.

The last time I gave it, I ended up getting into a huge discussion with some European execs who pointed out that many of the explanations seem to run almost entirely counter to what many countries who try to set up their “own” Silicon Valley think. That is, many folks look at Silicon Valley and try to replicate the outward manifestations (a good university, some venture capitalists) and miss the underlying details that create the real culture of Silicon Valley, because they almost seem counterintuitive. And the most basic element of this is enabling the free exchange of ideas (that engine for growth). Instead of doing that, most focus on protecting ideas and limiting that free exchange, falsely believing that hoarding information beats sharing information (even with competitors).

So, what happens is that other countries set up their own Silicon Valleys by focusing on protectionism (greater intellectual property rules, non-competes, hugely funded labs), and ignore the power of the cross pollination of ideas and people throughout Silicon Valley, which make it that much more difficult for any single company to abuse the trust of the people they serve. Should any company turn away from benevolence, that openness almost guarantees a more open competitor shows up in return (sometimes with the same employees from the older company). That openness drives innovation, but also keeps these benevolent dictators honest.

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In a culture that has everyone thinking that you can “own” ideas, it’s no surprise that we see such regular misuses of things like trademark law to pretend it conveys traditional property rights on the holder of the mark. As we’ve explained all too often, the purpose of a trademark is consumer protection — to keep someone from being tricked into buying Bob’s Cola, thinking that it’s Coca Cola. However, with so many stories promoting “intellectual property” in the news these days, it’s no surprise that some trademark holders think it gives them near total control over the mark.

Take this bizarre case as an example. A blogger on ZDNet had a post about “enterprise communities” where the phrase “branded community” was used. That’s a descriptive use and a perfectly reasonable one. Yet, the owner of some marketing firm wrote a semi-threatening letter claiming to hold the trademark on “branded community” and demanding that the blogger “refrain from using the phrase in any other current or future materials.”

Of course, that’s a complete abuse of trademark law, which does not grant the holder the ability to prevent all usage of the phrase, only usage that might cause confusion with the goods or services related to the mark. Using it as a passing phrase in a blog post does no such thing — but it already scared off the blogger, who changed the phrase in the original (though, thankfully, posted the threat letter with a detailed response). Either way, it’s yet another sign of the times, when people start thinking that a trademark allows them to prevent people from using a perfectly normal descriptive phrase like “branded community.”

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Blu-ray iMac

We’re looking to buy an iMac, but there’s no indication of if or when Apple is going to offer Blu-ray drives.
Rachael Johnson

JS: It’s more than three years since Apple joined the Blu-ray Association’s board and more than two years since Sony announced Windows laptops with built-in Blu-ray drives, so Apple’s silence is a mystery. The iMac is based on the same Intel technology that is found in Sony and other laptops that play Blu-ray discs when running Windows XP or Vista, so it’s not clear why there has been a delay.

However, Apple needs to offer the H.264/AVC High Profile and VC-1 video and various audio codecs, support the Blu-ray Java interface software and implement the required DRM (Digital Rights Management) system - none of which it appears to do, so far. Monitors must also support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection), but Apple’s website doesn’t actually say if any of its screens support it, and Apple’s Cinema Display screens do not. This makes it impossible to predict when Apple will finally offer Blu-ray, but I’d guess it would come with a new range. You could, of course, connect an external Blu-ray drive, such as the LaCie d2 (£546 at Amazon.co.uk), to an iMac if you wanted to use it for storage. If you want to play commercial Blu-ray movies, I suspect you’d be better off buying a standalone player or a Sony PlayStation 3.

From Tiny to Bit.ly

Until two weeks ago, it was all TinyURL. Now it’s all Bit.ly. I can’t find an article explaining the difference. Is there one?
Tim Gossling

JS: Both services let you paste in a very long web address then provide you with a short code that redirects to it. The main thing that Bit.ly adds is URL tracking: in other words, we get a number for how many people clicked each link. Unlike TinyURL, Bit.ly also keeps a copy of each page. For more details, see bit.ly/3Z5DAA

Closing Task Manager

There seems no way to close the Task Manager in Windows Vista other than rebooting. Once opened, there is no close button, and right-clicking does nothing.
Callum Brown

JS: Normally you can close applications by clicking the cross in the top right hand corner or by pressing Alt and F4. Not having a close button was a bit of a mystery, but a Microsoft Knowledge Base article reveals that Task Manager has a Tiny Footprint Mode. Briefly, double-clicking the top border of the window will bring back the usual controls. This applies in Windows XP as well.

Failed update

I was trying to update Windows Defender in XP but the application declared that error code 0×80241001 prevented this. Afterwards my browser, Firefox, kept crashing.
Alan Braddock

JS: The error code indicates that an update was not installed successfully. The Microsoft Knowledge Base describes two ways to fix the problem. If that doesn’t stop Firefox crashing, try uninstalling Firefox 2 and then reinstalling either Firefox 2 or 3.

LA in a TIFF

I submit environmental reports to a local authority. It says: “TIFF files are required for archival purposes as they are uncompressed which means they retain image detail and are stable (ie, do not degrade through successive opening and closing and saving)” unlike JPegs.
David Lynn

JS: JPeg files are “lossy” - they use a compression system that loses some detail - but opening and closing images does not cause any degradation. However, loading a .jpg image into a paint program and saving it can cause degradation, even if you don’t change it. There is no reason to do this, of course, but paint programs typically have a quality setting somewhere, so you will be re-saving them at “95% quality” or whatever. The rule is therefore not to mess about with original images, only with copies. TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a very old but very flexible format and it provides the option for lossless LZW compression, for example.

Backchat

Meriel Whale wanted an MP3 player with a built-in FM radio. On the Ask Jack blog, Paddydog suggested using a mobile phone: “The Sony Ericsson W960i has all the benefits of a Walkman and great sound quality. It also has FM radio and a capacity of 8GB.” I also suggested only buying DRM-free tracks, and Peter Killick adds: “You need to make people aware of the big quality differences between what you get from different suppliers for more or less the same cost.” An MP3 from Play.com might have a bit rate of 320kbps and one from Tesco Digital only 128kbps, he says.

· Get your queries answered by Jack Schofield, our computer editor at jack.schofield@guardian.co.uk

New portable PCs are in flood at the moment, with announcements from companies such as Lenovo, HP, Sony, Toshiba and Acer. This is not a coincidence. It has been triggered by Intel’s announcement of the new Centrino 2 platform, codenamed Montevina, which is being used in more than 200 new laptops.

Five years ago, the launch of the Centrino platform had a big impact on the market, and led to most notebooks having built-in Wi-Fi. Montevina is the fifth iteration of this platform, and calling it “Centrino 2″ suggests that Intel has similar hopes for it. However, that doesn’t seem likely. Montevina is an upgrade worth having, but you may not notice you’ve got it.

The main change is the inclusion of faster Core 2 Duo processors, codenamed Penryn, based on a new 45nm process technology, instead of 65nm. The new processors use less power and emit less heat, which should result in thinner notebook PCs with better battery life. They will also work with faster (but pricier) DDR3 memory chips.

Vista buyers will be pleased to hear that the new chip set includes Mobile 45 Express graphics, which Intel reckons is roughly 70% faster than the X3100 graphics in the previous Santa Rosa platform. You also get some video-processing in hardware, which should help with playing DVD and Blu-ray movies on the widescreens that now seem to have taken over. As usual, the graphics fall short of top gameplaying standards. However, Montevina lets you switch between the built-in graphics and a separate graphics processor without restarting the PC. Using the built-in graphics for word processing, web browsing and similar tasks saves battery power.

The one thing that could make Centrino 2 revolutionary is its support for WiMax, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, the 802.16 standard. This is, to put it crudely, a long-range version of 802.11 Wi-Fi. One of its aims is to deliver broadband speeds - perhaps 10Mbps - to mobile users. Wi-Fi works over metres, whereas WiMax works over kilometres.

However, Mobile WiMax will only become compelling when two things happen. The first, expected “later this year”, is the release of Intel’s Echo Peak - the codename for a card that supports both W-Fi and WiMax. This could make WiMax as common as Wi-Fi is today. The second thing is the arrival of WiMax services.

If you live in the US, you can be reasonably hopeful about both of those things. If you live in the UK, you may not get either in the near future. According to the WiMax Forum, “currently there are more than 305 deployments of WiMax services in 118 countries worldwide”. Some are being rolled out in the UK - one is in Milton Keynes - but most mobile users will probably have to wait until Ofcom auctions its “4G” spectrum and the winner(s) get round to installing transmitters and developing service platforms.

I think WiMax should be a global standard, like GSM. However, Ofcom is selling off our 2.6GHz wireless spectrum on “a technology and service neutral basis”. This means phone companies will be able to buy it and use it for something else - such as LTE or Long Term Evolution - instead of WiMax.

LTE, the next version of 3G telephony, is still under development and won’t appear for years.

This doesn’t mean WiMax is doomed. I’ve already seen an LG home router that provides both Wi-Fi and WiMax, and cybercafes could adopt them. With WiMax, you should have no problem getting broadband in your garden, or several streets away.

A few weeks back, we wrote about the question of whether or not newspapers should be getting into the community business by noting that you don’t build communities, you enable them. But, the question still remains how you enable those communities. Gawker had an interesting post recently along those lines arguing that newspapers shouldn’t allow comments on articles. The argument is, basically, that a lot of the comments are really dumb, and don’t add very much. That may be true, but in many cases, that’s because the newspaper doesn’t give anyone incentive to add smart comments. There’s no indication that anyone at most newspapers read the comments. The authors of the articles rarely, if ever, respond to people in the comments. There’s little to no engagement or discussion. So, instead, the comments just become a way for readers to vent. Just tossing up comments and thinking you’ve created a community is a mistake — but that doesn’t mean newspapers shouldn’t enable comments. It just means they should do so in a more intelligent manner.

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The House of Representatives passed the highly questionable Pro IP bill a few months ago. This bill, which would strengthen copyright law, just as many are realizing it should be headed in the other direction, would also establish a “Copyright Czar” position that would be part of the Executive Branch. Why we need a special Czar to prop up an obsolete business model has not been explained, beyond the usual propaganda from those who rely on that business model. It’s quite clear from all the companies we see who are succeeding by changing to new business models that don’t rely on copyright that this is a business model issue, not a legal one. But, Congress receives plenty of donations from Big Copyright, so it’s no surprise that we see laws protecting it.

The Senate has now weighed in with its version of the law. The bill was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, who has received plenty of campaign contributions from Big Copyright. His explanation of the bill is basically the talking points of the industry, showing that Senator Leahy is clearly out of touch with what’s really happening with copyright these days:

“The time has come to bolster the Federal effort to protect this most valuable and vulnerable property, to give law enforcement the resources and the tools it needs to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to make sure that the many agencies that deal with intellectual property enforcement have the opportunity and the incentive to talk with each other, to coordinate their efforts, and to achieve the maximum effects for their efforts. This bill does just that.”

Except, of course, the only thing “vulnerable” is an unnecessary business model built on gov’t granted monopolies, and there’s no explanation why such a commercial issue can’t be dealt with by civil lawsuits, rather than criminal ones. As it stands, Leahy is basically making the Federal government the private police of a particular industry, granting it much more power than is reasonable or needed.

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For months, Hasbro and Mattel had been threatening the makers of Scrabulous with a lawsuit for daring to do what the gaming companies had been unwilling to do: make a fun version of Scrabble available on Facebook in a way that got many people playing the game on a regular basis. It took nearly 9 months, but Hasbro finally put a version of Scrabble on Facebook itself, and now that it’s up has finally officially filed the lawsuit.

It’s rather telling that Hasbro waited until its own version was online to file the lawsuit. What the company is basically admitting is that Scrabulous was a great promotional vehicle for Scrabble (otherwise why leave it up?), but now that Hasbro is competing with Scrabulous online, it wants to cut out that competition. Hasbro’s General Counsel is being quite misleading in saying: “Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties.” That’s not quite true. There is no “obligation” to sue someone who made your game popular again just because you were late to the game.

Scrabulous showed Hasbro that there was a huge market for their game. There was no indication that Hasbro had any interest in Scrabble for Facebook prior to Scrabulous’ success.

Then there’s this bizarre quote from Hasbro’s GM of digital initiatives: “Hasbro has always had the same two priorities. One is to offer a great playing authentic game for fans and the second is to protect our intellectual property. This was theft of I.P., plain and simple.” Really? Your second biggest priority is to protect your IP? Then why did you wait all this time to sue? Clearly there was a benefit in leaving Scrabulous up while your own version was being developed. Clearly the comparison to “theft” is incorrect. No one would let “theft” go on for months on end before suing, just so they could create their own competitive offering.

The Scrabulous/Hasbro situation is a perfect example of Matt Mason’s thesis that “piracy” is almost never about “theft.” It’s almost always a market indicator that the market is unhappy with what’s being offered. It’s the market showing companies what they want.

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Following the EU’s misguided proposal to extend performance copyrights on songs from 50 years to 95 years, a group of professors from intellectual property, legal and innovation positions, have gotten together to send a highly critical letter, pointing out why such a copyright extension is not necessary and, in fact, will be quite harmful. Here’s a snippet of the letter:

Unanimously, the European centres for intellectual property research have opposed the proposal. The empirical evidence has been summarised succinctly in at least three studies: the Cambridge Study for the UK Gowers Review of 2006; a study conducted by the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law for the Commission itself (2006); and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008.

The simple truth is that copyright extension benefits most those who already hold rights. It benefits incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists’ estates. It does nothing for innovation and creativity. The proposed Term Extension Directive undermines the credibility of the copyright system. It will further alienate a younger generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis.

Hopefully, European politicians will actually pay attention to this condemnation of the proposed extension.

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It’s really disappointing watching various sports leagues abuse intellectual property law over and over again. Perhaps the worst offender has been Major League Baseball. MLB wants people to think that it owns absolutely everything having to do with baseball, even though the courts have shot it down repeatedly. Even when it may be legally correct, its moves tend to do more to harm the game than to help it. It’s as if MLB wants to keep shooting itself in the foot. The latest example was sent in by William Jackson, who points out that MLB is threatening the guy who made a neat Baseball app for the iPhone.

MLB has its own baseball app for the iPhone, which costs $5, that shows scores and highlights — but this free app doesn’t compete with that one. Instead, it’s basically a baseball encyclopedia, allowing fans to look up all sorts of interesting historical stats and information. In other words, it’s the sort of thing that helps fans feel even more connected to the game. So what does MLB do? It complains that the guy has the actual logos of Major League teams in the app. MLB argues that this is trademark infringement, but that’s questionable. This is helping to promote those major league teams, not harm or dilute their brand in any way.

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A few years ago, we wrote about the rather silly plan in the UK to create an “artist resale right.” This says that even if an artist has sold his or her work, if that work is resold, the artist still gets a 4% cut. The non-economic thinking on this is that an artist is forced to sell his or her work when it’s not valued as high, and thus deserves a cut when the value is much higher. However, that’s not at all what is happening. Instead, evidence has shown that this is more often used to depress the local art market by making it more expensive to sell art (and decreasing the incentives of anyone to resell any art they’ve bought). It profits big name artists, but tends to hurt the lesser known artists (you know, the one’s it’s supposed to help).

So, of course, it should come as no surprise that the wealthy artists who benefit the most from this resale right in the UK are looking to expand it (found via Against Monopoly). Currently, it only applies to living artists. However, they’re now pushing to extend the right to 70 years after death, where the family of the artist will be compensated — claiming that families deserve to be compensated for artwork a family member may have sold off a century earlier because: “Our loved ones often sacrifice a lot to support an artist in the family.” Of course, there are lots of sacrifices that families make for people in other professions as well, but they don’t get paid a century later for their efforts. This clearly has nothing to do with encouraging more art, since it seems to discourage that. It is, like so many “intellectual property” grants, a way for established creators to get more money out of what they already created, while hurting the market for new upstarts.

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