Solis Leaders Chosen as Echoing Green Fellows

8/5/2004 1:16 pm

From the press release: The global social venture fund Echoing Green has named cross-cultural advocates Liza Chambers and Lucas Welch among the world’s “Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs” for their plan to build and promote intercultural understanding between young adults in the United States and the Muslim world. As winners of the prestigious 2004 Echoing Green Fellowship, Chambers and Welch will receive $90,000 in seed funding and technical assistance over two years to launch Solis, an organization that uses innovative online video-conferencing technology to enable and encourage communication between young people at universities in the US and predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East." Welch, recently in residence at the Berkman Center, and Chambers are both Berkman affiliates.

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New Book By Berkman Fellow

8/3/2004 9:14 am

In the age of the Internet, we often boast about increased access to information. But, as a new book edited by Berkman Fellow Urs Gasser explains, information itself does not carry an inherent positive value -- consider for example misleading corporate balance sheets or inadequate health information. Information quality has emerged as a new problem confronting today's "Information Society." The volume, Information Quality Regulation: Foundations, Perspectives, and Applications, includes fourteen essays by a number of legal experts like Ejan Mackaay, Yves Poullet, and Herbert Burkert to provide a framework for understanding the problems of information quality against different theoretical backdrops, including economics and the law.

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"Read My Pixels"

8/2/2004 1:24 pm

Says David Weinberger -- "I am not a journalist." A veteran blogger and Berkman Fellow, Weinberger recently responded to a provocative article in CNet about the credentialing of bloggers for the DNC convention. Journalist Charles Cooper criticized the blog postings about the convention as ranging from "the insufferably pedantic to the sublimely mediocre." He claims that bloggers missed their chance to make history at the DNC. Weinberger's response: "To judge us through the lens of the media... is just not right." Weinberger argues in a video posting that blogs have a different readership and set of norms from traditional media, so naturally bloggers' commentary on the DNC had a different focus. Read more about blogging the convention.

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Streamlining Formats, Delivering Textbooks

7/30/2004 4:15 pm

Incompatible file formats have become more than just a glitch to students with disabilities across the country. While the technology exists to offer students with blindness, low vision, or print disabilities access to electronic versions of textbooks, lack of a standardized format for these files have prevented a number of these resources from getting to the students who need them. This week, the Department of Education endorsed a new, voluntary standard to help solve this problem: the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS). Read more in a press release from the Department of Education and learn about the Berkman Center's K-12 Initiative to explore innovative ways to bring electronic textbooks to classrooms.

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Call For Papers: Regulation of Privacy

7/28/2004 2:15 pm

From the announcement: Call for Papers: Workshop on Regulation of Privacy On-and Off-line in the Age of Technology, Cape Town, 3-6 January 2005.

This workshop will focus on regulation of privacy as it is currently impacted by technological developments, including, but not restricted to, the growth of the information society, growth in uptake of digital technologies, medical technological advances, security and surveillance technology advances, and database and data-mining developments. The workshop will be part of the WISICT 05 Winter International Symposium on Information and Communication Technologies (http://www.cs.tcd.ie/publications/tech-reports/wisict05/cfp.html ) and registration must be made direct to that conference by workshop presenters or attendees. There is unfortunately currently no extra funding available for workshop attendees, who must find their own funding for travel/accommodation/conference fee. However there is no extra fee for attending any workshop.

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Crisis Averted: Lobby the Lawmakers

7/28/2004 2:10 pm

We're talking about solutions today at Preventing the Internet Meltdown. After two days of meetings, participants in the technology conference in Los Angeles posted a list of problems that could jeopardize the robustness of the network or the individual user's experience. Debate snagged over the term "meltdown" – many seemed skeptical about whether the Internet itself is really in crisis. But there was consensus around a central point: as organizer Lauren Weinstein advised participants, "We must shift our focus from the stuff we love -- the bits and the bytes -- to the policy." Internet veterans are now turning their attention to other rule-making entities -- the U.S. congress, WSIS, and major corporations. Discussion focused on ways to lobby these players to protect the end-to-end architecture and the openness of networks, but participants seemed frustrated about how to leverage their influence.

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Experts Flummoxed By Impending Regulations

7/27/2004 5:59 pm

The second day of the Preventing the Internet Meltdown conference focused on a number of wedge issues that could alter the existing architecture of the Internet. Impending regulations about Voice-over IP (VOIP) and the new momentum behind surveillance initiatives related to Homeland security have a number of Internet experts seriously concerned about the net's future. "I have significant nightmares about where this VOIP issue is going to take us," said Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People For Internet Responsibility. The afternoon's other panelists -- Scott Bradner, Ed Felten, John Morris, and Peter Neumann -- no longer question that regulations will alter and complicate the existing packet-routing procedures of web traffic. The main focus of discussion focused on how serious those complications will be and to what extent they will thwart innovation.

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Meltdown Underway?

7/27/2004 11:52 am

The eye-catching conference title, Preventing the Internet Meltdown, has drawn a number of experts and early Internet pioneers to Los Angeles this week to discuss the thorny and elusive problem of Internet governance. Panelists have offered conflicting views on what "Internet governance" means, but they agreed on the central point that looming regulations pose threats to the Internet as we know it. How to chart the way to a better future? Discussion for the first two days will focus on specific problems like VOIP, intellectual property, and spam. Conference organizers have promised that Wednesday morning, the final day of the conference, will be the day of solutions. Stay tuned for answers.

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Weinberger, Others Blog Convention

7/26/2004 12:56 pm

Berkman Fellow David Weinberger is at the Democratic National Convention this week, blogging both in his own space and on Boston.com. He is joined there by former Fellow Dave Winer and approximately 30 other bloggers, including several members of the Berkman Thursday blogging group. An aggregator, set up by Winer, of all convention bloggers, is also available.

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Senate Committee Looks to Tax VoIP

7/23/2004 1:12 pm

The Senate Committee on Commerce has changed proposed legislation regarding Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) from guarding against regulation, to enabling states to levy taxes and compensate traditional phone companies for use of their phone lines. In an article on News.com, Declan McCullagh writes that "VoIP lobbyists claim that those fees are already being paid directly or indirectly," and so are unhappy with the changes to the bill. This development comes as Verizon rolls out its own VoIP service. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, is considering other potential legislation in this area.

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Solis Leaders Chosen as Echoing Green Fellows

New Book By Berkman Fellow

"Read My Pixels"

Streamlining Formats, Delivering Textbooks

Call For Papers: Regulation of Privacy

Crisis Averted: Lobby the Lawmakers

Experts Flummoxed By Impending Regulations

Meltdown Underway?

Weinberger, Others Blog Convention

Senate Committee Looks to Tax VoIP

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