You know the line about men and women thinking about sex n times per day? My digital life is more on my mind than sex.
I left my phone in the car. My folks and I arrived in Fairhaven, a neighborhood of Bellingham, Washington, to shop for children’s toys and browse the Village Books store. iPhone in coat, coat locked in car, I went iPhoneless for two hours.
A half-block from the car I had my first phantom limb experiences. I saw an abandoned London red phone booth and reached for my phone to take picture. I settled for a camera but I wouldn’t be able to twitpic that photo or share it with my telephony buddies.
Over the next 120 minutes I wanted to:
price compare books via Red Laser,
endorse an oil and vinegar tasting boutique on Yelp!,
check on expansion packs for Cataan (found something complex to level the playing field),
photograph some beautiful chutney at lunch,
look up Washington State’s counselor licensing (saw an office building full of therapists),
log how far off-diet my meal sent me,
check in from Village Books,
look up that indie-book-seller coalition they belong to,
read about their anti-Kindle campaign,
download the Fire & Ice four-pack to my Kindle app,
snapshot the cover of the last Gaiman book for friends in a science fiction Skype chat,
ask Quora a question about the DIY book industry,
remind myself to pack warmer next time,
read more about Washington State investigations into Whatcom County budget magic,
bookmark a book on business modeling for a friend,
check the hourly weather for that evening, and
peek at my sister’s family Amazon holiday wishlists.
That’s at least 18 reflexive reaches for my iPhone. 9 an hour, every 6 or 7 minutes. According to one recent study, this is more often than we think about sex. And this was just a casual family holiday stroll through a suburban shopping district.
Many of us are getting used to augmenting thought; in our ongoing internal dialog, conversations with others, shopping and working. Life is better with apps and live data. Heck, we think more complete thoughts, plan our future better, and interact with others in more informed ways with our digital life. Each time we reach, we’re getting mind candy, positive reinforcement. Our operant conditioning is strong.
So disconnecting causes withdrawal symptoms. How long offline does it take you to stop reaching for your laptop, tablet or mobile? For the conditioning to break down? Could observing a digital sabbath give us more freedom and control over our reflexes, more power to alter and adjust our behavior? Or should we not bother? Should we accept this new twitch response as an improvement?
This mind enhancement comes with strings and risks.
Does this new conditioning tie us to one company more than others, like mobile operating system publishers?
How can our new behavior shift power among corporations, governments, and individuals?
When you reach for your brain-augmentation-device, are you missing things because of that reach, causing new problems? Can the impulse to reach cause distracted driving, even without the gadget at hand?
At what point does personal dependence become a public necessity, like water, air, safety, and roads?
Can this behavior be exploited like sex? Sexy advertising bypasses our executive cognition and taps something more primal. Are printed www links and QR codes a first stab at triggering our digital reflex?
So here’s the test: Without hyperlinks in this post, how many times did you think to click on something? More times than you thought of sex? Aha!
I don’t know why I’m flabbergasted; I should know better. Maybe I’ve been swept up in pride over Tunisia’s and Egypt’s fight for Democracy over entrenched power. And then Hillicon Valley reportsa GOP briefing memo lumps Skype and Google in with carriers when it comes to net neutrality. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology is bringing in the FCC commissioners to defend net neutrality on Wednesday. Their congressional fact-finding asks “Network Neutrality and Internet Regulation: Warranted or More Economic Harm than Good?”
Sara Jerome quotes the memo: "If the mere threat of Internet discrimination is such a concern, and if the FCC has done no analysis to demonstrate why one company has more market power than another, why would discrimination by companies like Google or Skype be any more acceptable than discrimination by companies like AT&T and Comcast?"
You can watch the hearing Wednesday morning, 9:30AM Eastern, on the Republican committee’s web site. Subcommittee chair Greg Walden (Republican from Oregon east of the Cascades) will be your host. From a December 2010 press release: “More troubling than the substance of the network neutrality rules are the legal theories underpinning them. If left unchallenged, this power grab will allow the Commission to regulate any interstate wired or wireless communication on barely more than a whim. For all these reasons, we plan to look at all legislative options for reversing the decision. We also plan to hold a series of hearings early next year on the substance, process and claims of authority underlying this proceeding.”
No pre-hearing public positioning from the Democratic members of the subcommittee.
America’s incumbent telecom industry spent more than $90 million lobbying congress last year: $49.5 million from telecom services and equipment companies that sell to carriers, and $47.6 million from telephone utilities. This doesn’t include money spent on indirect persuasion, like issue advertising and astroturfing. Despite the partisan framing of this briefing memo, direct industry spending favored whichever party controlled congress.
Comcast told Level 3 to pay a toll before sending Netflix video streams to Comcast users. This fee wouldn’t be unusual if, say, Level 3 were moving the video files over Comcast’s network to Verizon or BT customers (transit). But Comcast is charging both the home user and then charging again for the data the user is trying to download. They’ve already been paid to move the data.
Comcast is holding customers hostage while interfering with their freedom to use the Internet.
Comcast is abusing its oligopoly power.
This is bad for Skype and its customers. It doesn’t take much imagination to see Comcast charging Skype for voice and video call traffic before it ever gets to a callee.
Perhaps it is time to break up Comcast into separate companies: one each for content creation, traffic termination, Internet transit, and communication. Is it too late to block the Comcast-NBC Universal deal? It takes strength and independence to take on Comcast. Few congressmen have either.
UPDATE: 56% of Oaklanders voted no on Measure W, which would have taxed phone lines and mobile phone service. This leaves Oakland the only major Bay Area city without a phone tax. Oaklanders passed Measure BB 70% to 30%, a local property tax measure. Message: don’t tax our phones.
Measure W: To support vital city services including public safety, library services, and parks and recreation, shall the Oakland Municipal Code be amended to establish a telephone “access line” tax at a rate of $1.99 per month per access line and $13 per month per “trunk line” will proceeds placed in the City’s General Fund subject to annual audits?
Like Skype itself, US cities see phone service as a pool of money to tap. Skype will have to grow at least a few order of magnitude before it becomes a specific target for government revenue. Let’s see if the new law’s language covers Skype.
The law defines a few of the terms:
"Access line" means any connection from a customer within the geographic boundaries of the City of Oakland to a supplier of telephone service offered to the public for compensation. "Access line" includes, but is not limited to, connections providing residential basic exchange service, business basic exchange service, PBX service (private branch exchange), foreign exchange service, and Centrex service. "Access line" also includes a connection from a single mobile telephone to a commercial mobile radio service, as defined in Section 20.3 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations as this section existed on October 1, 2002, which has as its place of primary use, as defined in the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act, 4 U.S.C. Section 124(8), a location within the City of Oakland.
So landline service and mobile service.
It defines providers:
"Service supplier" means any person supplying a telephone access line to any telephone communications service subscriber at a location within the City of Oakland. Service suppliers may include, without limitation, local exchange carriers, inter-exchange carriers, competitive access providers, cable television providers offering telecommunications services, suppliers of wireless telephone service, and any other entity offering direct connections between their premises and the premises of telephone communications service subscribers.
"Telephone corporation" shall have the same meaning as defined in Section 234 of the Public Utilities Code of the State of California, or the most comparable successor definition. It also includes any person providing wireless telephone service to any telephone communications service subscriber.
Skype isn’t offering wireless or landline “telephone service.”
"Telephone service" means access to a telephone system, providing two-way telephonic quality communication with substantially all persons having telephone or radio telephone stations constituting a part of such telephone system, whether or not such service uses transmission wires. For the purposes of the tax imposed by this Article, a person shall be construed to subscribe to "telephone service" within the City of Oakland if he or she has a "place of primary use" as such term is defined in the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act, 4 U.S.C. Sec the City of Oakland. "Telephone service" does not include any system that is expressly excluded from the definition of "access line" or "trunk line."
Skype is probably in the clear, for now.
I’d expect major cities to start adding VoIP taxes soon, especially where there is proof that your system touches the public phone network. As phone tax revenue falls with the switch from landlines to VoIP and mobile, governments will follow the money. The administrative costs for Skype could be huge, delighting incumbent telcos.
Meg Whitman (Republican) and Jerry Brown (Democrat) are in a close race for governor of the US state of California. Who would be better for Skype? IMHO, Jerry.
Let’s compare them on Internet access, net neutrality, and privacy.
I’d frame Meg’s positions as corporatist conservative so long as it doesn’t conflict with being a social conservative. Regulation is bad, regulation of corporations is evil, corporations are what make this country great, their leaders are the ones who create jobs and freedom.
So when asked about Internet access for all Californians, she’d say state government needs to get out of the way of businesses who’d want to serve them and cities shouldn’t compete with private companies to offer muni broadband or fiber backbones.
If you asked her about net neutrality, she’d say you want net neutrality but you want the government to stay out of it, that industry will make it work.
If you ask about strengthening and enforcing personal privacy laws, she’d support them in name only, saying she wouldn’t want to hurt businesses or interfere with public safety or national defense or to create new rights for sexual minorities or other people.
California Democrats, in order to promote vigorous free speech, a vibrant business community, and unfettered access to all information on the Internet, support policies to preserve an open, neutral and interconnected Internet.
…
To promote and support the Internet, Free Speech and Communications California Democrats will:
Support protections against any degradation or blocking of access to any websites or content on the Internet to which access is legal and constitutionally guaranteed;
Ensure that consumers have the right to free email and that any and all communications will be protected from warrantless search and seizure as constitutionally guaranteed;
Encourage build-out of high speed networks to all homes and businesses so that everyone, especially rural and underserved areas, can access content of their choice and upload or download what they want on the Internet as a public utility maintained by union workers;
Establish and secure ownership limits on private sector mass media to encourage and provide more cultural diversity, while protecting the openness, accessibility and integrity of the Internet as a public media resource for all Americans, regardless of income; and
Protect free expression by insulating those who engage in it from criminal or civil liability, if the content of that expression is constitutionally protected. To this end we must also prohibit the enforcement in California of any judgment or other determination by any court or tribunal of any other jurisdiction, if the expressive conduct of the defendant, that is the basis for the judgment in question, would have been protected as a right of free expression, if the lawsuit had been brought in this state.
I could easily see The DataPortability Project offering boilerplate resolutions that should work for local and national platforms, any party. Something like:
To promote and support the Internet, Free Speech and Communications we will:
Protect people’s ability to see, change, share, backup, and remove their data;
Interpersonal interaction started in the real world. The software community started by modeling observed behavior. Postal service became email, writing became word processing, meetings became conferencing, bulletin boards, instant messaging, and Skype calls. Services experimented with a mix of media choices; time/space/channel shifting; participant discovery, invitation, and scheduling; defining participant roles and moderating behavior; backchannels and voyeur streams; and the archiving and distribution of meeting work product.
The first generation of AR for conversation will reverse the flow, bringing the benefits of newly defined online social experiences to face-to-face real life encounters.
II. A dream platform
Let’s take a walk with a conversation charged with by augmented reality. Dream with me that we reach technical and economic feasibility in a few years.
In this world, eyeware becomes AR’s delivery platform, freeing your hands. Gestures and speech are our mouse and keyboard. I’ll assume a relatively thin client that senses locally and works with information via computing clouds.
III. Aug’d Talk
Before our meeting, gatekeeper bots help you screen, find, schedule, negotiate people to visit. Think services like Tungle.
Flickrrecognizes their faces at a distance, tells you to turn around to greet them, and makes them glow as they approach.
Fashionistascores the other person’s wardrobe and accessories. “Gucci knockoff”, “UC Berkeley Store: $34.95”, “Amazon Wishlist: Pearl Earrings, learn more.”
Equifax shows a hovering frame with their latest credit score, criminal background check, and public updates. "Experian: 4 of 5 stars."
Seesmicdampens your heads-up social peripheral vision so you can pay attention to each other.
Plaxo reminds you of who your closest mutual friends are with a two-second montage of faces.
Systraninterpreter bots overlay speakers with live subtitles in your first language.
Nuance and Bing listen in as you talk, whispering private tips and reminders in your ear. "Amy’s mother’s name is Gail." The social secretary serving up social objects and avoiding faux pas.
SecondLife adds a third participant’s avatar as we walk and talk down the street. Giving a virtual participant a medium for to participate in a realworld conversation.
Zoho Planner tells us we have three more minutes on this topic.
I see my RSAbot flash a caution halo over your head when it thinks your voice, facial expressions, and body language show deceit or that you are very likely to become violent.
Yelp Monocle suggests a nearby lunch place we might like and books a table for us, including a chair for the avatar and a blank wall for projections.
Google AdWalls places poster ads on blank walls as we walk by, some optimized by our mutual Buzz history, others unique to each participant.
UStream.ar makes a composite video stream from our respective Logitech PoVcams. Hundreds of voyeurs join our conversation, chatting in their own instant messaging backchannel.
Zemanta links to related conversations you might like. “Carol and David – same spot, same day, last year.” “Ed and Faith – similar topic (live).” “Gary, Harry, Ike – same café (live)."
Meetup reminds us there’s a flashshmooze in five minutes. "Our World’s A Conversation®."
Basecamp helps us recap our action items and commitments for our next meeting.
IV. Augmenting conversation requires technical architecture
We don’t have what it takes to deliver this experience in 2010. Let’s start with the technology.
A. The AR community opens its architecture.
Most parts of augmented reality software are bundled, intertwined, and often proprietary. I heard more than one AR researcher say at eComm they build AR browsers from scratch for each project.
Developers need a stack architecture that isolates components from one another, that defines how the parts talk to one another. A well-crafted stack means technologists and businesses can compete to become best-of-class within their part of the stack without breaking dependencies with other parts. For example, improvements in how bits are routed over the Internet don’t require an update to every web page; the two components are isolated, each doing their part.
This is how our telephones, local networks, and the Internet work. A stack speeds engineering through focus, reduces risk through compartmentalization, and allocates resources well as each layer of the stack becomes sends signals about its technical and business opportunity.
For a stack architecture to work, it must become a de facto standard, used by all.
B. The AR community separates browsers from content.
Most AR systems bundle content and features with a browser. This lets programmers tinker with the nuance of user experience, to exploit hardware, to code within an agile and iterative design process.
AR must split this atom to lower the bar for those who want to augment reality with information, behavior, communication and interaction.
Some companies, like Layar, aspire to be AR’s Netscape. That’s the right direction. Layar’s architecture is closed (you need their permission to use it), hosted (a single point of failure), and proprietary (only Layar defines how to use it). AR investors and consumers need a less risky architecture, so content and services survive when Layar closes (remember Netscape?) or acts capriciously (remember Apple?).
As with a protocol stack architecture, delaminating content creation and service from content players lets both evolve more quickly and with greater competition. At the moment, Layar offers a point-of-interest annotation browser; remember the web before forms, CGI scripts, Javascript and AJAX. AR has the potential for much more. That only happens when public and open protocols for serving and playing content emerge from the AR community.
Perhaps this is a call for Layar to follow Netscape’s shoes and further open its protocols and code, so its browsers can serve augments from any server, not just Layar’s. And so others can compete to serve AR content better, just as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer vie for web browser share.
C. AR browsers must offer concurrent experiences
I can only experience one reality at a time. I can’t see Wikipedia entries or the morning local news stories while looking for coffee. I want to. People need the power to blend content in our reality browsers. We need to be able to see content from multiple, independent sources at the same time.
Let’s assume your RayBan RealWare(TM) browser is letting you run a hundred views at once. Browser plug-ins and other services will help manage that experience to avoid overloading the user and to increase relevance. To do this, we need a few technology standards comparable to what’s evolved on the web. A secure way to deliver a service layer. A standard model of a layer as a container. A standard model of things within a layer and a way for your software to discover its properties and behaviors. Universal baseline user interaction methods so users can navigate and manipulate and control their environment. Agreement, on a limited basis, of when and how objects in one layer may interact with objects from another layer and how to give power over that choice to each user.
E. Layer Discovery and Stores
Which brings me to distribution. Build interoperability so anyone and everyone can publish with minimal opportunity for governmental or corporate restriction. Decentralization is a defense against consolidated power. More on this later.
V. What we don’t know
Despite more than twenty years of augmented reality research, AR is still early and immature. There’s a lot we don’t know.
A. Managing field of view
I was astonished by the 4K video displays at CES. So many pixels that you keep discovering new levels of detail as you walk toward the 152 inch monitor with four times 1080p HDTV resolution. At some point you can’t see the whole screen. You focus your attention, and your eyeballs, on a small portion of the whole. Just like real life.
When there’s a hard limit to what’s visible, you have scarcity. The economics of a zero sum game come to play. Those who value your attention (including you) will fight for prominent positioning within your field of view.
It’s happened before.
Billboards filled United States highways, advertisers bidding for the best locations to reach the most drivers. The public fought back after fifty years with the Highway Beautification Act promoted by Lady Bird Johnson.
Desktop operating systems and browsers also fight for scarce default pixels. Governments accused Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior for favoring its own Internet Explorer browser with an icon on the default Windows desktop. Google’s position as Firefox’s default search engine is worth more than $50 million annually. Skype agreed to exclusivity and to give lower its privacy expectations in exchange for scarce Verizon mobile desktop "on deck" placement.
For everyone else who wants your attention, there’s the $500 billion web browsing economy. Like America’s byways, the web brings a torrent of intrusive and distracting ads. Again, the public fights back with ad-blocking software, users seizing control of their pixels.
So the technology reveals a political question: who has power over what you see?
B. Interruption and Alerting
If you thought distracted driving was a problem… Interruption overload of your reality will be huge. AR interfaces can take your eyes from where they are needed, your mind off what you are doing, and pull your hands from what they are controlling.
I predict the first death from an AR interruption will be reported in a top news service by 1 January 2017.
Rapid contextual filtering will save lives.
Workshop to explore human cognitive limits and approaches to filtering well?
C. Gestural Language Tower of Babel
All of today’s gestural interfaces are limited in their scope and vocabulary. And no two of them are the same. When you are living with multiple layers, you need universal universal primitive gestures. With the web we have "click this link", "go back", "change context", "type something here", "press this button to make something happen" and "close the browser." Let’s avoid having the "get me out of here" gesture from one service to be interpreted as the "place my order for Viagra" gesture by another.
Workshop to start harmonizing gesture languages, anyone?
D. Layer Discovery Protocols
Many web pages hide little notes that point to alternative versions of that page. That’s how feed readers discover RSS, Atom, and ActivityStream feeds.
We’ll want our layer discovery protocols to be useful for people, helping them choose what layer services and objects to consume, and for systems, describing layers in ways that let software understand how to interact with that layer’s capabilities.
This technical disclosure powers the realtime web and enables our mashup economy. Disclosure protocols can fuel a world of AR mashups and interplay.
Workshop to start prototyping and testing discovery mechanisms, anyone?
E. Designing for variable infrastructure capacity
Cyberspace isn’t flat. It’s lumpy, twisted, sporadic, and changing. AR will challenge the ability of each part of the Internet’s infrastructure.
Mobile CPU/Storage/Battery
Bandwidth bottlenecks.
Wireless coverage
PAN bandwidth
Relevant content density
F. Social conventions
What is the proper way to meet an augment? To agree on mutual augments? To include a non-augment in your conversation? To behave in the presence of offline people?
What is forbidden? Is it OK for me to alter how I see you without telling you?
OK to share our conversations and augments with others without disclosure? Would it be OK to do that if I felt you are dangerous to me? If I was paid to broadcast? Could you claim an equity stake in my broadcast revenue?
Should I automatically disclose to you the analysis and metadata I collect about you, so you understand how I perceive you?
We have an entirely new body of social behavior to evolve, adapt and codify. An augment etiquette that defines new conventions to support our new virtual realities.
G. Public Policy
We need to start a conversation about society’s interest in encouraging good behavior and discouraging the bad.
Privacy for Public Conversations. I live in California where phone conversations may only be recorded if all the parties consent (California Penal Code 632). Should we extend this to conversations held in semi-public places now we wear recording media and as the streets and architecture become sensor-rich?
Data Portability Mandates. Companies hold our data hostage, the way landlords might hold your deposit and furniture hostage. This is a strong imbalance of power. As we come to rely on our augments for basic services all day long, their power will grow. Communities passed laws to protect renters from abusive landlords. Will we pass laws to protect people from sites that won’t let our data go?
AR-Free Zones. There may be a public good in defining some areas free of some or all augmentation. Courtrooms, perhaps. Some public parks. Would it be OK for a restaurant to define itself as an AR-Free Zone and require you to turn yours off before coming in? We have precedent in smoke-free, phone-free, and pet-free restrictions. Is access to your view of the world a fundamental right, to be protected by law?
Net Neutrality for AR era. Reality is too precious to let someone distort it. You don’t want any of the companies between you and your experience to have a say in what you see/hear/feel and what you don’t. In what you say and do, and what you can’t. To pick for you what is important and what isn’t. Their interests may not be yours. Should we legislate that ISPs serving AR experiences be forbidden from treating some bits differently from others based on their content or source? Should we apply net neutrality principles to companies like Layar who have the power to ban a publisher? To the companies that make your AR devices?
AR Carterfone. The Carterfone ruling said you may connect any device to the telephone network so long as it doesn’t harm the network. This led to a world of fax machines, private telephones, mobile phones, telephone switches, and eventually Skype. We need an AR Carterfone. So industry innovates and consumers choose and power doesn’t lie with those who connect us to each other.
Disclosure. "This is not real. Push here for details." "This is an old version of this place." "I am wearing an avatar."
Equity and Property. Does your employer get a copy of your AR life when you leave the company? Does your employer get to cut you off from the people and memories you created through AR? Who gets the layers you created with the kids once you divorce?
Freedoms. Politically, AR is speech; everyone will be a publisher. We want our technology to promote free speech. Socially, AR is conversation, so we want technology to help people organize and assemble themselves. Economically, AR is land; everyone will homestead and grow and build on it. We want everyone to build well without stifling the AR economy. We need to map AR against our ideas of civil liberty, human rights, jurisdiction, citizenship, protections for the weak and disenfranchised.
VI. In short…
We will augment walking and talking. Enhancing our face-to-face conversations will make money. Industries that now help us organize our time and relationships will compete to be part of our world view.
The technology comes quickly but huge obstacles remain. The biggest is a lack of an IT architecture.
The future depends on research and conversations. Design research into vision, attention, interruption, and gestural language. Consensus on how to behave. Debate on how to set things up so we build an augmented society we want to live in.
For a start, let’s talk about an Augmented Reality Stack. Get started. Let’s target have a workshop early this fall.
Some kinds of things you want sealed tight, no way to get inside and see how things work.
Software as a whole isn’t like that. The practice of software development depends on learning from the shared code of others. So it’s very useful for systems to expose parts of themselves to third-party programmers. It’s a way to share ideas, how the creators modeled things, to show how it was done so you can improve on it, to use it as a base on which to build. These affordances for programmers, these APIs, they are the shoulders of others, the foundations on which new generations build new structures, and express themselves with new arts, and solve problems not imagined by those who came before.
Where you show the guts and how to change them, a portion of the users become better informed. And a portion of them move on to become real engineers and artists.
This has always been true. For centuries. You could look at how a Jacquard loom worked or a Whitney gin and fix them. Or build your own.
Where games open up the ability to create levels or worlds or avatars or abilities or whatever, masses jump in to experiment and customize and create and share. Exposing your system’s guts unleashes innovation.
But we’re in a market economy. And keeping how you do what you do a secret is thought smart business. So we see Apple ban anything which would let an iPhone or iPad or iPod user write programs on the device they own. You have to buy a Mac and buy permission before you can code on your Apple mobile device.
So a generation will never get the chance to get under the surface. A generation will never get to play with how things work, to stretch themselves, to peel back the layers and layers of abstraction and functionality until their first Hello World! A generation is being denied the literacy to think critically about the software they use. A generation is denied the tools to express themselves through software, hobbling speech and the communities that emerge from that speech. A generation taught to be passive and helpless and rely on Apple Inc’s beneficence and their parents’ pocket change.
This is not a problem with Apple alone, not even of software alone. The same problem applies to household chemistry, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, and automobiles. We need generations empowered to hack their genes, to repair the flocking behavior of the bots inside their cars, to calibrate their neuroceuticals before an exam. Life skills, right?
That’s why society benefits when Apple, or Skype for that matter, chooses to expose more of how they do things to the world. And that’s why you should buy your kids and your schools and your day care centers the digital book readers and tablets and phones and desktops that are not child proofed. Buy the more open platform. Build on the more open platform. Invest in the more open platform.
The class of 2100 will thank you.
photo credit: Emma T photography: Fixing the Fiat 500. "Boys learn to be mechanics at an early age in Cuba. This nine-year-old was learning how to fix an engine under the watchful eye of his father."
SKYPE LAUDS U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT FOR PROTECTING INTERNET’S FREEDOM TO CONNECT PEOPLE ACROSS BORDERS
WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 – Skype, the global internet communications company whose mission is to enable the world’s conversations, applauds Secretary Clinton, her senior adviser for innovation, Alec Ross, the State Department and the U.S. government for embracing and defending the principles of freedom of expression, privacy, and the freedom to connect to the Internet, as well as for their use of Web 2.0 tools for 21st century statesmanship.
“Conducting international relations by encouraging online interaction is an example of the Internet’s power to change the way governments and people around the world engage as part of one global community,” said Staci Pies, Skype’s Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs. “Secretary Clinton’s concerted effort to transform the State Department’s role from traditional ‘government-to-government diplomacy’ to ‘people-to-people diplomacy’ is a clear recognition that more and more people around the globe are turning to technologies like Skype to freely connect with one another across borders and to increasingly facilitate diplomacy, interaction and understanding.”
It seems State heard Rebecca MacKinnon’s guidance on how not to save the Internet by focusing on human rights to connect. How will these high minded aspirations become policy? Can we expect tariffs on goods from censoring countries? "This product made by people with a censored Internet" product labels?
No it can’t. Amazon warns "Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed."
I can think of three reasons for this ban:
Amazon is worried about using up a year’s worth of data plan with one long phone call.
Amazon contracted to ban VoIP at the request of its mobile carriers.
Amazon wants to reserve VoIP for a future Kindle product. The Amazon phone?
Kindles have a mobile phone built in and a lifetime data plan, apparently a dream VoIP device (although better speakers, a microphone, and a webcam would be nice). Amazon will require apps to pay for data transfers at $0.15 per megabyte. So I’m betting Amazon is most concerned with keeping the costs of their mobile plan affordable for users.
Ubiquity: The Future of Tech and What We Can Do Now (Elias Bizannes, DataPortability Project). Internet + cloud computing + information + everywhere anytime anyway = ? Welcome to our new world of Ubiquity. Run by one of the founders of the DataPortability Project, this session will look at the longer-term trends in tech and what we can do now to innovate and accelerate this change. Business / Entrepreneurial / Monetization, Cloud Storage / Delivery, Economic Concerns, History of Technology, New Technology / Next Generation
Data Rights 2.0: the World Beyond Privacy (Gil Silberman, peerFluence, Inc.). Web 2.0 is about the interpersonal: friends, actions, expression. Who owns this space? What are the rules and norms? We’ll review multi-party data rights like security, disclosure, portability, and informed consent, then gives some concrete advice on what interactive companies need to do to avoid trouble, and build trust. Business / Entrepreneurial / Monetization, Community / Online Community, Social Networking
Data Portability for Multiple Identities (Andrea Hill, Independent)Sometimes you don’t want them to know your name.. Roller derby skaters adopt alter egos. Those with serious health conditions may wish for discretion in their online activities. Who is responsible for ensuring an individual’s privacy, and what is lost by choosing not to share personal information? Cloud Storage / Delivery, Community / Online Community, Digital Distribution, Government and Technology, Social Issues
Discovery Identity: API’s of the Semantic Web (Glenn Jones, Madgex) Without much conscious thought, most of us have built identities across the web. We fill in profiles, upload photos, videos, reviews and bookmarks. This session will explore the practical use of Social Graph API and YQL to build new types of user experience combining identity discovery and data portability. Back-End Programming / Databases, Front-End Programming, New Technology / Next Generation, Social Networking
The 5W’s of Data Portability (Dave Morin, Facebook) With the advent of Web 2.0 came a new readable, writable Web. This user-driven Internet calls for control of identity, connections and usability. This panel will discuss how to leverage this new direction with identity providers such as Facebook Connect – including the successes, failures and learnings of the technologies. Accessibility / Web Standards, Case Study, Digital Distribution, New Technology / Next Generation, User Experience
Let My Data Go! Portability Freedoms and Revolution (Phil Wolff, Skype Journal) Want the freedom to move from site to site, bringing your online information, experiences, and friends with you? Instead sites lock us up and evict us. We’ve had privacy policies for ten years. Where is our Portability Policy? Where is our portability? What can we do now? Community / Online Community, Government and Technology, Licensing / Fair Use / Copyright, New Technology / Next Generation, Social Issues
Cloud Portability: A Standard for Using Cloud Resources (Alex Polvi, Cloudkick) This talk will discuss the on going effort to standardize the interfaces into the cloud. Currently every cloud provider has a unique, proprietary, API for consuming the services they offer. The cloud computing interoperability movement aims to provide standards that will overcome vendor lock-in, benefit the consumers, and allow the cloud ecosystem to grow transparently. Accessibility / Web Standards, Information Architecture, Open Source
Astoundingly great, ubiquitous, pervasive, cheap, uncensored, clean, accessible, fair and market-driven broadband might be possible with a national plan. A former commissioner, Levin understands the deeper tech, social, economic and political forces at play, and the players. Skype’s Chris Libertelli told FierceVoIP last year that "Levin would make an excellent FCC chairman." (He didn’t get the job.) Blair’s a nice guy who knows the lyrics to Winnie the Pooh songs.
The first months of the Obama administration’s broadband efforts focused on quick, temporary, job creating projects. In his new role, Levin focus on "the whole ballgame." The video is from January 2009′s State of the Net Conference where he discusses some of the gaps a national broadband plan could discover and fill.
Great broadband makes Skype better, so this appointment is a hopeful portent.
Michael Copps, Vivian Schiller, Susan Crawford to Keynote Free Press Summit
Event to highlight public interest policies on Internet, journalism and public media
WASHINGTON — The Free Press Summit: Changing Media in Washington, D.C., tomorrow will feature keynote speeches by Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps, Vivian Schiller, president of National Public Radio, and Susan Crawford of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council.
What: Free Press Summit: Changing Media When: Tomorrow, May 14, 2009, 9:30 a.m. — 5 p.m. Where: Newseum, 6th St. and Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.
The one-day event will highlight the policies to reshape the future of the Internet, journalism and public media. Free Press will also release a new book, Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age. The full agenda is included below.
9:45 a.m. Welcome to the Free Press Summit
Josh Silver, Free Press
Alberto Ibargüen, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
10:15 a.m. Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at www.freepress.net
Mobile Carterfone – freedom to use the device of your choice on a mobile network
Mobile Net Neutrality – US mobile carriers are blocking Skype voice calls from data services. See iPhone and Windows Mobile store policies written by carriers.
Net Neutrality – ISPs banned Skype. Should that be OK?
P2P Freedom – As Skype shows, p2p has legitimate uses yet copyright industry groups draft laws banning the technology.
Rural Access – Skype users needs cheap, capacious, ubiquitous, expandable broadband to the home and office.
Telco Antitrust – The big mobile, landline, and cable carriers are very profitable, even in a horrid economy. Evidence of undue market power?
Privacy – The US government is funding research to intercept Skype calls and uncover your Skype contacts
E911 – When does Skype become responsible for helping people call emergency services?
Unwanted Attention – Telemarketing, spam, spim, spit – we hate it all. What is government’s role?
Carbon Footprint – Can Skype-like communication lower our personal and national environmental impact? What can Skype engineers do to lower it further?
Review every major FCC decision since the 1996 Act and reverse those that failed to promote broadband competition, openness and access. Congress should aid this process with a series of oversight hearings.
Develop a data-driven standard to identify local areas where broadband providers are abusing their market power, and use the tools in the 1996 Act to promote competition.
Expand and codify the FCC’s "Internet Policy Statement" into permanent Net Neutrality rules. Congress should pass a Net Neutrality law to place these protections in the Communications Act.
Reclassify broadband as a "telecommunications service," which will allow the FCC to promote competition by reinstating open access rules where appropriate.
Transition the Universal Service Fund from supporting telephone service to supporting broadband infrastructure. Congress should aid this transition through oversight and legislation to provide a clear path for FCC action.
Produce an honest assessment of whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely fashion, as required by the 1996 Act.
Conduct a thorough review of policies governing competition and pricing in the "special access" and "middle-mile" or "enterprise" markets — the broadband lines that connect cell phone towers and local area networks to the Internet.
Open more of the public airwaves to unlicensed use and promote shared spectrum for both low-power urban and high-power rural uses. Congress should instruct the FCC and the NTIA to identify spectrum that could be utilized.
Offline for a the afternoon, the better to pay attention and mingle.
Want to talk trust-busting? 
Susan Crawford has my attention
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