18 July 2008

Wireless is meant for everyone

At the end of a long week, I just came across this story which I think is great as it shows that wireless is fascinating - it is not only about multimillion companies employing hardcore freaks working in posh open plan offices with foosball and spending huge budgets on R&D and marketing. Luckily, it is about everyone and as we know, the total is more than the sum of all components (which, as far as I remember, was mentioned by Aristotle who probably would have been delighted by the prospect of a certain topic spreading within a society).
I keep my fingers crossed that this genius (not Aristotle, of course) will receive the funding to develop his proof of concept and bring it to the market.

4 July 2008

Could the flood of User Generated Content be coming to an end?

In a landmark ruling this week, a judge in New York ordered YouTube to release data on the viewing habits of millions of viewers worldwide. Privacy advocates are alarmed at the prospect of viewing habits being opened to scrutiny.
The decision follows a $1bn lawsuit brought about by Viacom (the owner of channels like MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon). Viacom alleged that YouTube encouraged people to upload significant amounts of pirated copyrighted programmes.
Yes, everyone knows: uploading copyrighted videos is illegal and steps should be taken to protect DRM. It is something many in the industry have called for time and time again. But User Generated Content (UGC) has grown exponentially and the latest devices make uploading our own content much easier.
So, could the prospect of users' details being scrutinised by large corporates put off people from signing up and using sites like YouTube? 2007 was the year that saw UGC take off, could 2008/2009 see its demise? This is a debate the industry will be following closely.