http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-essay-will-reading-in-the-digital-era-erode-our-ability-to-understand-the-world-7734221.html Quite the opposite, so long as we grasp the fresh routes to knowledge, and connection, that technological change brings, says Nick Harkaway. These are old, old fears in a new form. In ancient Greece, Socrates reportedly didn't fancy a literate society. He felt that people would lose the capacity to think for themselves, simply adopting the perspective of a handy written opinion, and that they would cease to remember what could be written down. To an extent, he was right. We do indeed take on and regurgitate information, sometimes without sufficient analysis, and we do use notes as an aide… ]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 03:38:40 -0700 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-essay-will-reading-in-the-digital-era-erode-our-ability-to-understand-the-world-7734221.html http://engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-explains-how-it-searches-the-internet-in-under-half-a-sec/&category=classic&postPage=1 Ever wonder how Google manages to search the entire web and return results in half a second? Well, RobertvH from Munich did, and Mountain View’s head of web-spam, Matt Cutts, talks you through it in the above YouTube video. The short answer? Lots of backend firepower and, you know, a few years in the search game. If you remember the Google dance, Cutts explains what caused that, before going on to give a good idea about how today’s version of the site does what it does. If you’re thinking this all sounds a bit too much like SEO 101, you’d… ]]> Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:49:39 -0700 http://engadget.com/default/article.do?artUrl=http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-explains-how-it-searches-the-internet-in-under-half-a-sec/&category=classic&postPage=1 http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/5/25/a-joke-twitter-feed-that-could-change-the-way-we-understand-the-internet/a-joke-twitter-feed-that-could-change-the-way-we-understand-the-internet-motherboard Google searches made by a 92 year old man = @oldmansearch : Existential twitter genius http://t.co/1m8rb2hw ]]> Sat, 14 Apr 2012 08:37:56 -0700 http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/5/25/a-joke-twitter-feed-that-could-change-the-way-we-understand-the-internet/a-joke-twitter-feed-that-could-change-the-way-we-understand-the-internet-motherboard http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech "It’s probably not unrealistic to say that porn makes up 30% of the total data transferred across the internet" : http://t.co/T7MFHbvo ]]> Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:06:36 -0700 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites/just-how-big-are-porn-sites-extremetech http://rorschmap.com//rorschmap http://t.co/3OoyZPxX is so right. – Folkert Gorter (folkertgorter) http://twitter.com/folkertgorter/status/188742061728612352 ]]> Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:04:31 -0700 http://rorschmap.com//rorschmap http://www.iasc-culture.org/eNews/2012_02/Wellmon.pdf/why-google-isnt-making-us-stupid-or-smart-httptcot4oxsjbt Why Google Isn’t Making Us Stupid… or Smart : http://t.co/T4OXsjbt ]]> Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:12:38 -0700 http://www.iasc-culture.org/eNews/2012_02/Wellmon.pdf/why-google-isnt-making-us-stupid-or-smart-httptcot4oxsjbt http://gizmodo.com/5887743/this-hoarders-house-is-so-messy-and-dirty-you-can-see-it-from-google-maps/this-hoarders-house-is-so-messy-and-dirty-you-can-see-it-from-google-maps A Hoarder's House so #Kipple-ized you can see it from Google Maps : http://t.co/h2U0Icrh ]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:50:38 -0700 http://gizmodo.com/5887743/this-hoarders-house-is-so-messy-and-dirty-you-can-see-it-from-google-maps/this-hoarders-house-is-so-messy-and-dirty-you-can-see-it-from-google-maps http://thebrowser.com/articles/e-books-cant-burn/e-books-cant-burn-best-of-the-moment-the-browser E-books Can't Burn: Could it be that ebooks bring us closer to the essence of the literary experience? @nybooks http://t.co/IMoUdFtP ]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:50:20 -0700 http://thebrowser.com/articles/e-books-cant-burn/e-books-cant-burn-best-of-the-moment-the-browser http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook And as every sci-fi nerd knows, you totally need a tricked-out battleship if you're about to engage in serious battle. To state this as clearly as possible: The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phones and tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more. This competition will be intense. ]]> Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:25:13 -0700 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation SF has changed over the span of time I am talking about—from the 1950s (the era of the development of nuclear power, jet airplanes, the space race, and the computer) to now. Speaking broadly, the techno-optimism of the Golden Age of SF has given way to fiction written in a generally darker, more skeptical and ambiguous tone. I myself have tended to write a lot about hackers—trickster archetypes who exploit the arcane capabilities of complex systems devised by faceless others. ]]> Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:47:54 -0700 http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false Most of the time Google does not actually have the answers. When people say, “I looked it up on Google,” they are committing a solecism. When they try to erase their embarrassing personal histories “on Google,” they are barking up the wrong tree. It is seldom right to say that anything is true “according to Google.” Google is the oracle of redirection. Go there for “hamadryad,” and it points you to Wikipedia. Or the Free Online Dictionary. Or the Official Hamadryad Web Site (it’s a rock band, too, wouldn’t you know). Google defines its mission as “to organize the world’s… ]]> Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:17:11 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/how-google-dominates-us/?pagination=false http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/15/poor-memory-blame-google/poor-memory-blame-google Poor #memory? Blame #Google #ExtendedMind #science #technology #mind #Internet #fb ]]> Sat, 16 Jul 2011 06:27:34 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/15/poor-memory-blame-google/poor-memory-blame-google http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-22/bostonglobe/29571858_1_data-privacy-public-health Who owns the data in that cloud has been the subject of ferocious debate. It’s not all stored in one place, of course — our lives are tracked and documented by a diffuse assortment of entities that includes private companies like Google and Visa, as well as governmental agencies like the IRS, the Department of Education, and the Census Bureau. Up to now, the public conversation on this kind of data has taken the form of an argument about privacy rights, with legal scholars, computer scientists, and others arguing for tighter restrictions on how our data is used by companies… ]]> Mon, 30 May 2011 15:11:01 -0700 http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-22/bostonglobe/29571858_1_data-privacy-public-health http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS7QvOX8LVk&feature=youtube_gdata ]]> Thu, 19 May 2011 01:51:45 -0700 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS7QvOX8LVk&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21514 Information is exploding so furiously around us and information technology is changing at such bewildering speed that we face a fundamental problem: How to orient ourselves in the new landscape? What, for example, will become of research libraries in the face of technological marvels such as Google?

How to make sense of it all? I have no answer to that problem, but I can suggest an approach to it: look at the history of the ways information has been communicated. Simplifying things radically, you could say that there have been four fundamental changes in information technology since… ]]> Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:03:34 -0700 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21514 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/15/internet-brain-neuroscience-debate Two summers ago, the Atlantic published an essay by Nicholas Carr, one of the blogosphere's most prominent (and thoughtful) contrarians, under the headline "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".

"Over the past few years," Carr wrote, "I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going – so far as I can tell – but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a… ]]> Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:46:00 -0700 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/15/internet-brain-neuroscience-debate http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois.html Oe fateful day in early August, Google Maps turned Arunachal Pradesh Chinese. It happened without warning. One minute, the mountainous border state adjacent to Tibet was labeled with its usual complement of Indian place-names; the next it was sprinkled with Mandarin characters, like a virtual annex of the People’s Republic.

The error could hardly have been more awkward. Governed by India but claimed by China, Arunachal Pradesh has been a source of rankling dispute between the two nations for decades. Google’s sudden relabeling of the province gave the appearance of a special tip of the hat toward… ]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:33:00 -0700 http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Reading-in-a-Whole-New-Way.html As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change?

America was founded on the written word. Its roots spring from documents—the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and, indirectly, the Bible. The country’s success depended on high levels of literacy, freedom of the press, allegiance to the rule of law (found in books) and a common language across a continent. American prosperity and liberty grew out of a culture of reading and writing.

But reading and writing, like all technologies, are dynamic. In ancient times, authors… ]]> Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:24:00 -0700 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Reading-in-a-Whole-New-Way.html http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/06/losing-our-minds-to-the-web/ Enter Nicholas Carr, a technology writer and Silicon Valley’s favourite contrarian, whose book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Norton) has just come out in the US (and will be published in Britain by Atlantic in September). It is an expanded version of an essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” printed in the Atlantic magazine in 2008, which struck a chord with several groups. Those worrying about Google’s growing hold on our culture felt Carr was justified in going after it (though there was little about the search giant in the article). Those concerned with the… ]]> Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:50:00 -0700 http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/06/losing-our-minds-to-the-web/ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin’s face. The BrinBot obeyed its human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system.

The BrinBot was hardly something out of “Star Trek.” It had a rudimentary, no-frills design and was a hodgepodge of loosely integrated technologies. Yet it also smacked… ]]> Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:26:00 -0700 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html