technology

ShareMeNot

Via Bruce Schneier come news of an important plugin

ShareMeNot is a Firefox add-on for preventing tracking from third-party buttons (like the Facebook “Like” button or the Google “+1” button) until the user actually chooses to interact with them. That is, ShareMeNot doesn’t disable/remove these buttons completely. Rather, it allows them to render on the page, but prevents the cookies from being sent until the user actually clicks on them, at which point ShareMeNot releases the cookies and the user gets the desired behavior (i.e., they can Like or +1 the page).

The add-on is also important as it highlights the fact that information is being shared even when the button is not clicked.

Posted on by mklang

Under attack

My inbox is overflowing with warning messages from my anti-virus service. I am receiving almost 100 messages per hour warning me that someone is attempting to send me a potential virus. The information in the message is:

The virus or unauthorised code identified in the email is >>> Possible MalWare ‘Exploit/Phishing-westernunion-6576’ found in ‘13812907_1X_PM1_EM7_MH_FW__message.htm’. Heuristics score: 200

This is so annoying!

Posted on by mklang

Information diets

What happens when we finally reach a point of information saturation? Can we see information in the same way as food? Some food would be healthy, some would be unhealthy, but no matter what food – overeating is never a good thing.

In 2004 Jimmy Wales was quoted saying (“Wikimedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds,” Slashdot (2004–07-28)):

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge

This is, in essence, a wonderful idea – but imagine what will happen in a world were the sum of all human knowledge is available? I began to explore this in a presentation called Wikipedia & Dr Faustus? where I discussed the effects all the worlds information being made available.

The problem with wishing for access to information is that we today have an infrastructure that can provide all the information that we desire but the technology will not discriminate between healthy and unhealthy information. As part of summer reading I began The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser and came across an interesting quote from Danah Boyd from her speech at the 2009 Web 2.0 Expo:

Our bodies are programmed to consume fat an sugars because they’re rare in nature… In the same way, we’re biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we’re not careful, we’re going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We’ll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole.

Maybe Boyd is making a value judgement on the different forms of information and compares the “gross, violent, or sexual” to fatty foods – which would probably make necessary facts and information (e.g. maps, statistics) high protein or high fiber. In relation to food we are programmed for fats and sugars but in relation to information we are programmed to relationships. Information about which berries are edible varies but information about relations is universal. We are programmed to be wary of precisely the gross, the sexual, the humiliating and the embarrassing – our survival in the group depends upon it.

The problem is that our interests in these areas is related to other people, people who we are not related to or dependent upon they serve only as entertainment or simple diversion. The evolutionary role of diversion is unclear but we certainly do seem to desire it – or at least fear boredom. So in our desire to avoid boredom we overindulge in our consumption of unhealthy information.

There are basically two ways of dealing with over-consumption (1) more exercise, or (2) dieting. The former is not really efficient but is more a method of coping with the effects of over-consumption. The latter is healthier as it reduces the intake and avoids the negative side effects of over-consumption. Exercise is hard work, but dieting is harder still. It goes against all our natural instincts to overindulge in preparation for the next information glut.

We need to learn healthy information habits right from the start and to ensure that we keep away from information binges. Staying information healthy may be important, but it sure sounds boring.

Posted on by mklang

Boredom as source of creativity

When was the last time you were bored? Do you remember where you were, what you did and why you were bored? Think about it…

The whole point of the early Internet was to connect – an active effort was needed to access the content that existed. You had to turn on the modem and wait (ah, the nostalgia of modem sound). This active Action was often preceded by a reason: we connected to find out something, do something, or maybe (more rarely) to avoid having to do anything else. With fixed lines the active step disappeared. All we have to do is look at the screen.

From fixed connections to embedded connection

The heady days of fixed connectivity, moved quickly to wifi and now to smart phones and pads. Today connection is not the issue. Technology is all around us and our technology is in constant communication with the rest of the world. This is nothing new, years of technological development – all of which so we can surf over to Facebook while waiting for the bus. What began out of necessity became the ultimate source of constant diversion.

What is lost in a world without boredom?

Now please don’t take this as a nostalgic longing for a time without technology. That’s not the point of this text. The point is to look at what disappears when we become embedded in connection. The first thing our connected toys did was make waiting unnecessary – and before long waiting became intolerable. My purpose is to consider what happens when our opportunity, and capacity for, boredom disappears from our lives. What is lost in a world without boredom?

Boredom is usually experienced as a terrifying abyss that most of us instinctively and habitually flee. We are afraid of the abyss that boredom represents we are afraid that it will swallow us if we let it live inside of us. Or, as Nietzsche writes (Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4):

And if thou gaze long Into an Abyss, The Abyss Will Also Gaze Into thee.

Boredom is a sickness and every sickness needs a cure. Since boredom is negative it is natural to see a world free of boredom as positive. But is boredom really a disease? It could also be understood as a time when the brain disengaged from tasks and is allowed to be, allowed to experience and roam. But with our technology we are not bored and our minds need not begin to roam.

The end of creative boredom

At my department, all faculty and students have laptops, smart phones and we are all embedded in wireless environment. If meetings are boring, lectures difficult, if group work unpleasant… we surf away. I’m not worried that we don’t do our jobs or our students will not learn. But what is lost is the creative boredom that Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own, chapter 2) refereed to when she wrote:

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, That the submerged truth Sometimes Comes To the top.

Giving your brain time to process, bubble, draw connections, and finally present new ideas, thoughts and imaginative creations. Creativity requires boredom. Requires time where nothing happens, where everything is still.

When was the last time you bored?

Do you remember the last time you were bored? If you are like me, it was probably about an hour when it was socially unacceptable or technically impossible to use your technology. Escape routes were cut off: Technically or socially. Next time it happens, don’t reach instinctively for your technology. Stride toward the abyss and enjoy the breathtaking view. Release your mind and wait for the next creative impulse to bubble up from your subconscious.

(This post originally appeared in Swedish in March 2010)

Posted on by mklang

Apple data

“Mac sales rose 28 percent year-over-year during Apple’s last quarter, while PC sales declined 1 percent

There are now 54 million active Mac users around the world.

Mac sales have outpaced the broader PC market for 5 years, 22 straight quarters

Apple has sold 200 million IOS devices to date …

… which accounts for more than 44 percent of the mobile market

25 million iPads were sold in the device’s 14 months of availability

15 billion songs have been sold from the iTunes store …

… making Apple the #1 music retailer in the world

130 million books have been downloaded from iBooks

There are 425,000 apps in the app store

90,000 of them are designed specifically for the iPad

14 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store in less than 3 years

Apple has paid some $2.5 billion to developers building apps for the app store

There are 225 million iTunes Store accounts, all of them with associated credit cards and 1-click purchasing

There are 50 million Game Center users. XBox Live, which has been around for a lot longer, only has about 30 million

IOS users send more than 1 billion Tweets a week

To date, about 100 billion push notifications have been sent to iOS devices

The iPhone 4′s camera is the second most used camera on Flickr”

via Warsystems, via Digital Stats.

Posted on by mklang

The appearance of justice

Just today I was asked by the media about the effects of social media on the courts. The reason why I was asked for my opinion was the notorious Casey Anthony case. The basics were that Casey Anthony’s two year old child Caylee goes missing but the mother does not report this for 31 days. The rest is stranger than any drama writers creation: the mother is shown to be a incredible liar, dancing and happy, even getting a tattoo with the words “Dolce Vita”. The grandfather is accused of incest, the police boyfriend lies to the police and social media is mined for any and all evidence that can be found.

For the last three years Casey Anthony has been waiting for her trail while the world has been discussing every fact and fiction related to the case. The story begins with the media and then is picked up on various social media channels.  The professionals work on building a case and a defence. Social media even figures in the jury selection where Facebook accounts are mined to see if a presumptive jury member is good or bad.

The idea in this situation that you can find an impartial group of people in the middle of a media storm is an anachronism. There were serious questions of whether the jury would be affected by the popular opinions expounded in social and other media. The discussion reached fever pitch during the trial and when the jury left for their deliberations. And when the notification came that the jury were back #caseyanthony was trending on twitter. The verdict was unexpected by the media. Not guilty of all charges but lying to the police. The rage on twitter was incredible. The verdict was that the prosecutor was unable to prove Casey Anthony’s involvement in murder or child abuse.

Even earlier there were comparisons between the O.J. Simpson case but here was a major difference – those who were angry during the Simpson case could only scream at the TV with twitter the screams could be shared, discussed and amplified.

No matter which verdict the jury had presented the question of influence from social media hangs in the air. Even if the jury were not supposed to know anything – is it possible to be unaffected by the media storm?

The next problem is the question of what role social media should play in a court process. In Sweden we still prohibit cameras in the courts – this means that the public can twitter, blog, comment and link to external photographs – but not point a lens. The purpose of this is to protect the integrity of the court process but is this protection pointless considering the prevalence of social media? Should we therefore allow cameras or prohibit social media devices in the courtroom?

A final problem is the appearance of justice. Lord Hewart is the origin of the adage “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” This poses a problem: the courts are concerned with justice but what happens when the society outside the courthouse demands a verdict that the courts are unable to deliver? What is apparent from reading twitter is that the demands for justice (or blood?) from the virtual mob have hardly been met.

Articles of Interest: Emily M. Janoski-Haehlen The Courts are all a‘Twitter’: The Implications of Social Media Use in the Courts New Media and the Courts: The current status and a look at the future A report of the New Media Committee of the Conference of Court Public Information Officers Michael Bromby The Temptation to Tweet – Jurors’ Activities Outside the Trial

Interesting articles:

Emily M. Janoski-Haehlen The Courts are all a‘Twitter’: The Implications of Social Media Use in the Courts

New Media and the Courts: The current status and a look at the future
A report of the New Media Committee of the Conference of Court Public Information Officers

Michael Bromby The Temptation to Tweet – Jurors’ Activities Outside the Trial

 

Posted on by mklang

The unconnected iphone

Not sure about the source (One FPS) of this but it is interesting

A little birdie says that about 50 percent of Apple Store customers who need to get their iPhones swapped have never plugged them into iTunes after the initial activation and sync. This is a big reason, according to this birdie, for why Apple Store Geniuses are excited about iCloud.

What I find interesting is thinking about what the lack of syncing means? Sure the “Geniuses” are excited about iCloud but my interpretation is different.

The lack of connections between the iPhone and a computer could indicate that many users do not use the phone in its full potential. But they prefer to use the phone for its stand alone features: talking, texting and taking photos. If this is the case then most of these users have bought a phone that is much more sophisticated than it need be. Image is everything?

It also means that the iCloud will not solve the “geniuses” reported problems as the users will still not connect.

Posted on by mklang

Toilet brush covert surveillance camera

Via BoingBoing comes the story of a creepy man secretly filming women in a Starbucks restroom.

A 25-year-old man hid a video camera disguised as a plastic coat hook inside the women’s restroom of a Starbucks in Glendora, CA, and secretly recorded more than 40 women and children using the toilet over two days. The man “downloaded the device about every hour to his laptop computer while sitting in his car,” according to police. (LA Times)

Most of us would be in agreement that the actions of the man are creepy. But what I find interesting is the point that nowhere in the original story (LA Times) is the manufacturers responsibility discussed. What moral responsibility does a manufacturer/designer have for a camera, disguised as a plastic coat hook, that can be affixed to a wall?

The coat hook is – in this context – an almost a reasonable product. There is a whole range of hidden bathroom camera devices on the market. How about the toothbrush camera, toilet brush camera, shower radio camera, bathroom light camera, toothpaste camera, hair clipper camera, soap dish camera, shower mirror camera, shampoo bottle camera… (all from the same manufacturer)

There may be certain situations where invading someones privacy with the help of covert surveillance cameras is legitimate – maybe even necessary. But the mass market for goods to cover these situations is hard to envision. It is even more difficult for me to understand when it could be a legitimate need to covertly film people in the bathroom. And yet there are mass market cheap goods that cover this particular situation.

So when the creepy 25-year-old uses these products – he is being creepy. But when would the use of this stuff not be creepy?

Does the fact that these products exist and are easy to buy promote and encourage creepy behavior?

Posted on by mklang

Post-Social Media

Yesterday I was in Borås at the Social Media Day which is an annual politics and social media conference (ppt slides and movies here). This year was opened by the US ambassador to Sweden Matthew Barzun, who gave an interesting talk (ppt) (much of it in Swedish, which was impressive). He spoke about the promise of technology and the difficulty of predicting the future and the importance of values in developing and using technology.

He also told the story of the Swedish engineer Laila Ohlgren, who, in the early days of mobile phones, solved an interesting issue of data roaming: by the time you finish dialing you have lost contact with the original phone mast. She proposed the simple – but breathtakingly fundamental – change of dialing the complete number first and then hitting the dial button. Fantastic, simple, basic… and totally revolutionary thinking.

Next up was Marie Grusell who spoke on the topic of party leaders use of twitter in their communication. She made interesting points on the differences between dialog and monologue and the relatively low usage of twitter among Swedish politicians. My focus on this was cultural and I wondered why the use was so low. An interesting comparison to the low numbers (the highest was Gudrun Schyman with 183 following and 9,447 followers) is the Norwegian Prime Minister @jensstoltenberg who follws 34,768 and is followed by 48,698.

This was followed by Per Schlingmann & Hampus Brynolf who held a low-tech (i.e. no ppt) discussion on social media now and in the future. There talk was experienced based and they seemed to be in relative agreement that social media would become a natural part of the political dialogue, that nobody wins elections through social media – but they may lose them through social media, that technology has led to the need for politics to be prepared with immediate answers for everything – which creates a need for an artificial, slowing down to think before you tweet. They also pointed to the unfortunate lack of focus on the everyday social media use in politics and the overemphasis on campaigning.

This was followed by Anders Kihl who demonstrated the ways in which Borås has been working to create multiple access points to municipal information and dialogues. As a practitioner Anders is very down to earth and the work done in Borås shows that everyday social media use in politics is important and engaging.

Jan Nolin introduced the concept of Wikipolitics into the discussion which had so far been very much focused on the concept of social media as a communications channel. He argued that social media channels does not take into consideration the importance of the possibility of using social media as political movements – not only in protests but provides a potential for the harnessing of the power of crowds in everyday socio-political life.

Next up was Grethe Lindhe from Malmö who presented the ways in which the region was using technology to enable citizens to propose and bring up questions into the political arena. By creating this possibility the Malmö region believed that politics would be made more accessible to a larger section of the citizenry.

Lars Höglund took his starting point in the large SOM-survey to attempt to deepen our understanding of the participatory elements of politics and the internet. My main beef was that I got stuck on the group they call “the internet generation” which was defined as those born between 1977-1997. What annoys me about this is that this groups’ aspect is that they have not experienced a pre-web age. Why this classification annoys me is that these digital natives (a term coined by Marc Prensky) are supposed to have special insights into technology. Let me give an analogy: While I was born during the age of the automobile this does not make me competent to talk in depth about the effects of cars on society, our dependence upon fossil fuels or the rise and fall of the car industry.

Last up – before the closing panel was me. I had been asked to talk about the links between social media and the law but I used my time to present some of the interesting points from my latest research into attempts by municipalities to regulate social media through policies. Its a work in progress and yesterday I addressed the concept of the municipality lawyer being negative to social media in a talk entitled Law is simple, people are not. Slides below

lag är enkel, människor är svåra

View more presentations from Mathias Klang

One of the things we were asked in the panel was whats up next? What will we be doing with social media today and in the future. What is post-social media? All in all it was a very good meeting. Lots of interesting people and discussions. I am looking forward to the next time.

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Technological progress & business models

The problem with technological change is that the original technological stage creates business possibilities, followed by the creation of business models based upon established technology.

Not all technological change needs to be great. Some small changes in socio-technical arrangements just create shifts that end sustainability in business models. A beautiful elegant example of this is the nylon stocking vending machine in use in Stockholm in 1956.

Life Magazine has a fantastic photo essay In Praise of the Automat

Posted on by mklang