Group items tagged

In a world of increasingly open source software, how do we see the phenomenon of piracy? especially when certain bodies decide the connotations of piracy.

A list of the heavy open-source hitters for audio playback and editing.

Sound cloud looks really interesting, but they host all of the content and you just send out links to share it. In order to play content on your page, you need a mess of java script commands and I have no idea how to link that to your content... Guess that's why all the bands pay big bucks to have someone build their site for them.

Alright. Thanks, Ben.

This article examines how Red Hat transitioned from free open source software to a system they sell through a subscription with updates, patches, and bug fixes. Red Hat still provides free code, though; a community project called Fedora provides "a testing ground for the enterprise features delivered to Red Hat's paying customers," allowing both the company and the users to benefit from collaboration. This article shows the balance of sustainability between free and paid access. It also echoes Kenneth Goldman's claims in Uncreative Writing because the CEO says, "If you believe in the concept of modular innovation where a lot of different people add to works that came before them, patents clearly slow that down."

An article about Inbound Writer, software that helps writers revise their content to maximize search engine optimization. The author's conclusion: "Just like the Internet it is served across, InboundWriter is just an information source, and it can be used for good or evil."

Google's New Search Algorithm to Crack Down on 'Black Hat Webspam' By Ars Technica By Matthew Braga, Ars Technica Nefarious search engine optimizers be warned. Google is coming for you-again. Following previous changes to Google's ranking and page layout algorithms, the search giant is pushing yet another update to its algorithm this week with the hopes of curbing "black hat webspam" from creeping into search results. * Google thinks that by increasing the complexity of its algorithms, it can weed out malicious intent. Funny thing about complexity is that it tends to breed more complexity. This reminds me a bit of Bogost's book on games. This cat and mouse scenario between Google and fake SEO creators seems to lead to ever evolving code much like in natural systems where the adaptations of the prey animal to take advantage of an environment are eventually matched by a predatory animal with adaptations designed to match or exceed the prey's abilities...

A neat -WIRED- blog documenting new developments in software (mostly Internet based), also offering some tips-and-tricks kinds of features too.

Whoops

My last day teaching was Friday and already they're trying to make it so I can't come back :( Though, I've seen computer poetry and I'm not sold on the idea that computers can gauge quality...

Keeping track of passwords is definitely a hassle for most of us, so a service that groups all of them didn't seem far off. It will be interesting to see how this develops, and if it will catch on and be secure.

From about page: "We make it easy and attractive for the web generation to give back through our Fellowship, which connects technologists with cities to work together to innovate; our Accelerator, which will support disruptive civic startups; and our Brigade, which helps local, community groups reuse civic software."

This short article begins the discussion of what role the Digital Humanities will play when Google comes out with glasses that have cameras built in that will enable "real-time geolocation, facial recognition software, the journaling and storing in the cache and third-party's servers of everywhere you go and see whilst wearing the glasses." He questions how we can use these gadgets to our benefit while still protecting human rights and freedom of speech.

I really like the black-and-white photo in this article that shows the group of people wearing 3D glasses--that's exactly the visual I had in my head while reading this article. It's kind of unsettling to think that that image could become an everyday reality in the not-so-distant future.

Red Hat, the world's largest, most successful open source software company and one I'd like to work for in the very near future, submitted this blog post last month about SOPA and PIPA. It explains how such bills could devastate online collaboration, innovation, and the sharing of ideas and technology.