The Great Seduction

It’s Not Just Apple That Is Tracking Our Every Movement

This story of how the iPhone and iPad are tracking the every movement of their users keeps growing. Now DC Policymakers Ed Markey and Al Franken have gotten into the act, calling on Steve Jobs for an answer to this potentially massively embarrassing story.

While I haven’t had the opportunity to chat today with Steve about the situation, I did talk earlier to Robert Vamosi, a cybersleuth at Mocana and the author of the excellent new book When Gadgets Betray Us. And what Vamosi told me was pretty scary. According to him, it’s not just Apple gadgets that are betraying us.

So guess who else is watching you as you watch this TechcrunchTV clip?

 

 

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Keen On… Scott Harrison: Water Changes Everything (TCTV)

Happy Earth Day everyone!

And to have a good Earth Day, and I mean a really good one, you need to watch a three minute video that was released today. It’s called Water Changes Everything and it’s been made by charity: water, an amazing non-profit organization founded by the incomparable Scott Harrison and actively supported by many Silicon Valley notables including Michael Birch, Jack Dorsey and Chris Sacca.

And then, after you’ve watched Water Changes Everything, please watch three short Earth Day interviews I conducted with Scott Harrison in which he talks about ways that we can both save water and help solve the water crisis afflicting a billion people around the world. Did you know, for example, that 50% of schools in the world still don’t have clean water or that a $5,000 donation can finance a well which will provide water to an entire village?

Yes, the water crisis is solvable. That’s the great news this Earth Day. Now go help solve it.

 

 

 

 

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Losing Independence

While big budget movies continue to be hurt by Internet theft, it's low- and mid-range films that are being damaged the most. With stolen revenue eating into returns, legislation and education are necessary so the next generation of independent directors will be able to survive.

     One of the Internet's greatest fallacies, its fishiest tale, is the idea of the "Long Tail." Popularized by Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, first in a 2004 magazine article and then in the bestselling 2006 book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, it argues that the Internet is an ideal distribution platform for independent filmmakers, musicians, and writers struggling to compete against the financial might of mass media conglomerates. By providing online stores with infinite shelf space, Anderson, among others, contend that the Internet balances the playing field between the large movie studios and the independent filmmaker and guarantees that a rich and deep catalogue of indie artists is always available to consumers.

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Keen On… George Friedman: Why Technology Is American Culture

How important is the technology sector to the US economy? According to George Friedman, the author of the New York Times bestselling The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re Going, technology is American culture. Rather than Coca-Cola, it has been the personal computer that has swept the world, spreading the American language and distributing the central American values of individual freedom and empowerment around the world.

While Friedman recognizes that other countries can copy US technology, he is bullish on American prospects in the 21st century because of our unrivalled skills in marketing. So where are we going in the next decade? According to Friedman, the iPad and Twitter aren’t fundamental technological breakthroughs. But he does think that we are on the brink of another technological revolution in non silicon, non binary based computing – a change, he says, that will have as profound an impact on the American economy as the personal computing revolution of the Eighties.

 

 

 

 

 

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Keen On… George Friedman: Did the Secret Police Invent Twitter?

Why does the American media love Twitter and Facebook so much? According to George Friedman, the author of the New York Times bestselling The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re Going, it’s because these social media networks reflect American values. When the world uses Twitter and Facebook, Friedman explains, it simply confirms to the American media that everyone “wants to be just like us.”

But, for Friedman, the truth about Facebook and Twitter is much more complex than the way in which the fawning western media portrays it. Twitter is a wonderful tool for secret police to find revolutionaries, he explains. The truth about Facebook in Egypt is that it was a pawn in an undemocratic army plot to get rid of Mubarak. While in Iran, he says, the fact that the vast majority of tweets about Iranian politics are in English reflects the inconvenient truth that the vast majority of Iranians don’t use Twitter.

This is the first part of a two-part interview with Friedman. Tomorrow, he explains why technology is American culture.

Love him or loathe him, Friedman is one of the most controversial geo-strategic thinkers around.

 

 

 

 

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Keen On… Bob Metcalfe: Yes, There Is a Social Networking Bubble

When Bob Metcalfe says that there’s a social networking bubble, we should take notice. Inventor of the Ethernet, coiner of Metcalfe’s Law, founder of 3Com, a technology pundit and publisher at InfoWorld, VC at Polaris Ventures, and now Professor of Innovation at the University of Texas, Metcalfe is one of the true pioneers of Internet technology and business.

But, in spite of Metcalfe’s sense that the social networking bubble will burst, he remains bullish about innovation on the Internet. In particular, he sees three sectors which are about to be radically disrupted by the Internet: healthcare, education and energy. That’s where we’re going next, Metcalfe predicts. So forget about your social media start-up, he advises, and focus on reinventing the education, healthcare and energy industries.

This is the second in a two-part interview with Metcalfe. Check out yesterday’s interview when he talks about his invention of the ethernet and Metcalfe’s Law, as well as his infamous 2000 prediction that the Internet was about to collapse.

 

 

 

 

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Keen On… Bob Metcalfe: No, Bob, The Internet Isn’t About to Collapse

n 2000, Internet pioneer Bob Metcalfe published a book entitled Internet Collapses and Other InfoWorld Punditry. Eleven years later, you can buy used copies of Internet Collapses for $0.01 on Amazon.

But while Bob Metcalfe may have been wrong about the collapse of the Internet, he’s been right about many many other things. Metcalfe not only invented the Ethernet in 1973 (and, by extension, wi-fi as wireless Ethernet), but he also has an eponymous Law named after him – the famous Metcalfe’s Law about the power of the network – as well as being the founder of 3COM, a one-time publisher of InfoWorld, a general partner at the Boston based Polaris Ventures and currently a Professor of Innovation at the University of Texas at Austin.

So it was a real thrill for me to sit down with Metcalfe to talk not only about his invention of the Ethernet and Metcalfe’s Law, but also about what most worries him about the robustness of today’s Internet. And while Metcalfe no longer believes that the Internet is about to collapse, he remains worried about its security threats, particularly from organized criminals and hackers.

And check back tomorrow for the second part of this two part interview when Metcalfe explains why there’s a social networking bubble and what sectors of the Internet economy he believes are just about to take off.

 

   

 

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