SpokenWord.org, a non profit site that aggregates spoken word programs on the net, and also the creator of the excellent Levelator software which ISOC-NY uses to improve its webcasts, is appealing for curators to join its ranks.
Curators will cover specialty areas and be prominently featured on the site. If you’re interested either in becoming a curator or just participating in the discussion of how the curation system will function, please join the brand-new dedicated Google Group .
Clay Shirky speaking at Cannes in Jun 2010 about Cognitive Surplus.
The 8th Hackers on Planet Earth Conference aka The Next HOPE Conference will take place at the Pennsylvania Hotel NYC on July 16-18 2010.
* Full schedule
* Cost: $85 advance, $100 door
* Facebook page
* Twitter @thenexthope
On Monday Jun 28 2010 a small group of ISOC-NY members met with Hunter Newby, founder of Allied Fiber, to discuss the company’s plans to encircle the entire USA with a dark fiber ring with carrier neutral access at any point . It was a very stimulating talk lasting over 2 hours.
Audio is available: mp3 | (ogg coming tomorrow) Audio currently under review, will return a.s.a.p.
Noel Hidalgo will be presenting a public discussion “In Code We Trust” at Eyebeam NYC this Thursday July 1 2010. A live video stream is promised.
“In Code We Trust” is the new motto for Government in the 21st century. Across the country, geeks inside and outside of government are developing a new participatory and transparent Federal, State and Municipal governments. Built upon open-source tools, open standards, and best practices, this panel will highlight authorized actors as they practical examples of initiatives from private, public and government sectors.
Date: Thursday, 1 July 2010 from 6:30 – 9:30
Location: Eyebeam, 540 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10011 (map)
Format:
6.30 – 7:30 – Happy Hour / Socializing / Viewing of exhibits & installations
7:30 – 7:45 – Introduction to the RE:Group show
7:45 – 8:30 – 6 Lightning presentations (20 slides at 6 mins 40 sec) –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha
8:30 – 9:30 – Question and Answers
Hosts:
Noel Hidalgo, New York State Senate
Beka Economopoulos, Not An Alternative
Presenters:
Sarah Kaufman – Projects Coordinator, Emerging and Intelligent Transportation Systems, MTA New York City Transit
Laurel Ruma – Gov 2.0 Evangelist, O’Reilly Books
Daniel Latorre – VP, Digital Placemaking, Project for Public Spaces
Phillip Ashlock – Open Government Project Manager, OpenPlans
Ben Berkowitz – Founder, SeeClickFix
* Hashtag & Twitter references: #InCodeWeTrust and @Eyebeam_Org
* Facebook Event
The People’s Production House has embarked on producing a series of video narratives from New York City’s most active community organizing groups about why the Internet is important to their communities. The first is now online:
The 9th round of negotiations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are taking place this week in Luzern, Switzerland.
The participants in those negotiations are: Australia, Canada, the European Union and its 27 member states, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States of America.
* ISOC ACTA info
* Twitter #ACTA
* Michael Geist ACTA: The State of Play
The Supreme Court opinion in re:Bilski is in. With typical ambivalence it upheld the federal court’s decision while rejecting it’s reasoning, replacing the machine-or-transformation test with essentially no test at all. The Court rejected the patent just because it was an “abstract idea”. From the syllabus:
The machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for patent eligibility under §101. Although that test may be a useful and important clue or investigative tool, it is not the sole test for deciding whether an invention is a patent-eligible “process” under §101. In holding to the contrary, the Federal Circuit violated two principles of statutory interpretation: Courts “‘should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the legislature has not expressed,’” Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U. S. 175, 182, and, “[u]nless otherwise defined, ‘words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning,’” ibid. The Court is unaware of any ordinary, contemporary, common meaning of “process” that would require it to be tied to a machine or the transformation of an article.. . .Because petitioners’ patent application can be rejected under the Court’s precedents on the unpatentability of abstract ideas, the Court need not define further what constitutes a patentable “process,” beyond pointing to the definition of that term provided in §100(b) and looking to the guideposts in Benson, Flook, and Diehr. Nothing in today’s opinion should be read as endorsing the Federal Circuit’s past interpretations of §101.
So this would seem to leave the whole question of software patents as wide open as ever.
Opinion is at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-964.pdf
NY Times Story Broadband Availability to Expand
Selected quotes:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is seeking to nearly double the wireless communications spectrum available for commercial use over the next 10 years, an effort that could greatly enhance the ability of consumers to send and receive video and data with smartphones and other hand-held devices.
President Obama will sign a presidential memorandum on Monday that aims to make available for auction some 500 megahertz of spectrum that is now controlled by the federal government and private companies, administration officials said Sunday.
Specifically, the presidential memorandum will direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to identify federally controlled communications bands that can be made available within five years for exclusive or shared use by commercial companies.
Roughly 45 percent of the spectrum to be auctioned would come from federal government agencies that will be asked to give up allocations that they are not using or could share, according to administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the announcement.
The remainder would come from unused spectrum already scheduled for auction or from broadcasters and other spectrum licensees who would be offered incentives to give up or share parts of their communications airwaves. Currently, the spectrum for wireless communications is about 547 megahertz.
Lawrence H. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy, is expected to detail the broadband effort in a lunchtime speech in Washington to the New America Foundation, a public policy institute
Some spectrum also would be made available for free, unlicensed use by start-up companies and others, administration officials said. Such unlicensed spectrum has previously helped in the development of cordless phones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth applications.
Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, a consumer-oriented policy group, said the interest of consumers will be most helped by auctions that help to promote competition between wireless companies rather than entrenching the dominant providers in the market.
The People’s Production House is seeking a grant of about $3 million from the second round of federal stimulus funding, in conjunction with the North Star Fund and 21 other organizations. The grant money, which would be more than matched by the North Star Fund, would pay for the New York Constellation of Community Computer Centers project. The money would allow the initiative, which already creates public computer centers, to expand and upgrade.
Source: Gotham Gazette