Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many :: QUESTIONS

1. This chapter mentions how one individual attended a wake for a friend’s father and when she arrived, everyone’s head was bowed down; however, to her surprise she realized that everyone was not in fact praying, but instead sending text messages. What does this imply about changes in social behavior due to smart mobs? Do you find yourself using cell phones more and more in places where it was completely unthinkable to use five years ago?
2. As graduating seniors, many of us will be moving soon to new and much larger cities, where many of us will not know a single person besides our boss. There are numerous social networks site online (i.e. facebook, friendster, etc.); however, none of these sites offer the convenient, instant matchmaking services as mentioned with ImaHima, which lets you ask permission to contact a stranger whose profile is similar to yours and is nearby your current location. If these services are available to wherever you plan to relocate, would you use these services? Why or Why not?
3. On the www.smartmobs.com blog, there was an article discussing how mobile phones were used and still are being used as political channels in the Persian Gulf.
   
   The story also points out the use of this technology for abuse:
   “Rola Dashti... pressed her phone's text message button and read an anonymous insult circulating on hundreds of Kuwaiti phones, digital graffiti that attacked her family's Persian ancestry and disparaged her Lebanese-born mother. "Here's what voters will gain if they vote for Rola Dashti," the text message read, as she recalled it. "They will learn the Iranian accent. They will learn a Lebanese accent. And they will learn how to work with the American Embassy to get money." - article
   
   Rheingold concludes this chapter discussing how computers and the Internet were designed, but the way people would use them were not designed into the technology. Since then, many forms of abuse have developed on the Internet, such as spam and pop up ads. What abuse do you see in the future for cell phones?
4. Rheingold mentions how Upoc sends out a “NYC terrorism alert”. Should alerts like this become mandatory for every cell phone? Why would people be against this?

Always-On Panopticon ...or Cooperation Amplifier? :: Questions

1. Rheingold mentions many instances where individuals refused the uptake of a new technological innovation. The author mentions a study of Norwegian teens where “a certain percent of all teens, about 10%-15%, have resisted adoption of the mobile telephone. Like those adults who do not purchase a television, these teens often have clear ideologies against ownership and use.”

Have you ever resisted the use of a new technology? Have you ever felt forced to make use of a new technology? Has our culture evolved to the point where “nonadopters” are no longer viewed as conscientious objectors, but as ignorant individuals?

2. From Smart Mobs:

“Every telephone call, credit card transaction, mouse-click, email, automatic bridge toll collection, convenience market video camera, and hotel room electronic key collects and broadcasts personal information that is increasingly compiled, compared, sorted and stored by an unknown and possibly unknowable assortment of state security agencies and people who want to sell something”

From the BBC:

“The chance to win theatre tickets is enough to make people give away their identity, reveals a survey.

Of those taking part 92% revealed details such as mother's maiden name, first school and birth date. “

Do you think that the widespread collection and availability of personal information has increased or decreased the value of privacy to modern society?

3. Rheingold mentions MIT researcher Joseph Weizenbaum who “declared that it would be an abomination to start connecting the nervous tissue of living creatures to future computers. “ Check out this research from Duke.

“After demonstrating that an owl monkey's brain signals could be analyzed to operate a robot arm, Miguel Nicolelis and his colleagues will next graduate to a "feedback loop" system to explore whether the brain can incorporate the arm into its representation of the body.”

Duke researchers have been able to get both rats and monkeys to control robotic arms through the use of circuitry connected directly to their brains. They’ve also tested the system to see if those signals could be sent over the internet…and they can. This is much more advanced than the “cyborgs” we’ve read about thus far. How far would you be willing to go with hardwired human-machine circuitry? (Driving a car with no hands, changing channels on your TV with just a thought…)

4. When someone chooses to use a new technology, most choose to accept it regardless of the possible negative effects of their new gadget.

Rheingold mentions phones that can be used to find your location by just being turned on.

New computers, cars, and phones with Bluetooth technology are being hacked easily.

When “your friend” downloads and installs some file sharing programs, they accept the spyware / malware / adware that infect their computer.

In some cases these technologies are necessities, others …just plain fun. Either way, one will have to accept the negative aspects of these technologies or have to do without. At what point does information security stop you from using a new technology? Does it matter to you as long as you can download faster, link easier, or talk longer?

Beware the Panopticon

Rheingold speaks about our cyborg friend, Steve Mann, in reference to the type of person who accepts nearly all aspects of automation and mechanization as inherently positive. However, the question also arises concerning whether people are dehumanizing themselves in a quest for improved “technique” or efficiency. What are your thoughts? Would you accept a proven scientific treatment to augment your brain power? Moreover, would you be accepting of any type of mechanical augmentation? What if your life depended on it?

In the acceptance of different forms of technology, how do we avoid the metaphorical tragedy of the commons (or the digital divide v.2) or the winner take all consequences of zero-sum situations? Is it necessary to have government regulation to curb individuals who wish to exploit the global network? What, if anything, should be done to facilitate the widespread diffusion of innovation?

Rheingold mentions on numerous occasions that society as we know it today is the process of varying levels of interpersonal and societal cooperation. Do you feel that the growing level of constant access to vast amounts of information and other online databases makes people less reliant on their immediate peers? Also, do you think that the loss of personal interaction in exchange for mobile communicators will have any long-term adverse effects, or none whatsoever?

Is the internet devolving back into a mass medium for marketing and becoming a tool of consumerism? What solutions can you think of to avoid having the internet be chiefly a medium which dictates information flow to a large number of passive consumers? (simply answering blogging will not suffice…)

Do “Smart Mobs” lead to a more knowledgeable populace or simply one where all participants know the same things as everyone else? Bonus points if you can use Panopticon in a sentence...

UNC Student Protest for File Sharing Rights

After talking about the upcoming Supreme Court case of MGM Studios v. Grokster after days ago, I thought that it would be an interesting read to see what others thought about the case. One UNC student (actually a SILS graduate student) has taken action to be part of history.... Is this real-life example enough for you, I would think so :-)

The story can be found here: Camping Out for the Grokster Case

Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many

1. Rheingold mentions various mobile communication technologies designed to support cooperation, awareness, and interactions between individuals within their respective vicinities. (Lovegety, Upoc, Aurnet, and ImaHima). The automated exchange of information among users is stated to create webs of trust as well as unplanned, informal interactions. Has anyone ever used this type of advice? Why or why not? An example cited in the chapter illustrates using Aurnet to gather a carpool of strangers—Would you trust this type of device?

2. Decentralized, self-organizing social networks have proved not only to be intelligent but also successful in their ability to function and solve/manage problems that would be either too complex or too large for any one individual. Can you think of potential problems or cases in which such organizations would not function efficiently? Additionally, how are these social systems vulnerable?

3. Are we too connected? Researchers state that connectivity is key—you can use electronic connections to better yourself economically (connectivity = productivity; disconnection disables). However, opponents argue that in the technological age, individuals and businesses have decreased in productivity. Which side would you agree with? Consider not only economic factors but evolving social norms as well.

4. What are some possible short-term as well as long-term effects of network-structured communities using “netwars” for democratic and non-democratic purposes?

Wireless based internet for the home

From The Register:

Not for us, but maybe one day...

Two German telecom companies are pumping out cheap broadband service based on 3G wireless technology. For a regular home connection the cost is about twenty Euros (~25 dollars) a month for 5 gig worth of data transfer.

"Vodafone and O2 have now rolled out the 3G-based home broadband service they promised earlier this year: prices look more aggressive than first expected. But can it succeed? Well, maybe, just maybe, in some apartment blocks."

Using 3G wireless for domestic broadband | The Register

Wireless Quilts Questions

These days wireless networking affects almost everything that we do. Rheingold does an excellent job of describing wireless networking more in depth and providing a way to further analyze whether their is a need for wireless and its use in public areas.

Questions:


(1) This chapter talked about wireless networks being in areas where computer users cluster-coffee shops. How many people in the class can say that they go to coffee shops like Starbucks to do work and use the wireless connection there and if they do use wireless at coffee shops, how often do they go?

(2) How do you think wireless networking affects the way people use public places? This is something that Anthony Townsend, a research scientist was investigating, focusing on how WiFi affected the way people used public places.

(3) In this chapter, Rheingold says "Wireless is undoubtedly the best way to bring online the majority of the world's population." Do you agree and if so, how is wireless luring people in?

(4) What shifts or turns do you think wireless networking will take in the near future? What specific things would you like to see happen (improvements etc.)? Do you think that wireless networking will be a more profitable business in years to come?

Wireless Quilts Questions

1. Do you believe that increasing wireless internet access points will in turn give more and more people access to the internet? How has wireless Internet access at Carolina changed the way you do your work and use the internet? Has it enhanced or complicated your Internet experience?

2. Rheingold mentions that many mobile communications empower cooperative bands of intercommunicants in urban places. After Jessamyn West's talk about rural places, how do you think rural places would be "empowered" by coorperative bands of intercommunicants. Would these rural people be receptive of the wireless internet, or be hesitant of the emerging technology?

3. From the www.smartmobs.com website: Skype has reached an agreement with Motorola that aims to embed Skype software onto a number of Motorola WiFi-, 3G-, and even WiMax-enabled mobile phones in the near future. As a result, subscribers will be able to make free national calls and low-cost international calls by using the Internet to carry calls rather than standard mobile networks." (thanks to Michael Sciannamea)

Do you think that agreements like this will eliminate land line phones, and long distance phone carriers? How will Skype on wireless phones transform the way in which people communicate?

4. Large ISPs are now in danger of losing customers because wireless internet is available in many common places like libraries and coffee shops, do you feel that the Internet is a public resource? Should it be divided in divisions and owners of a certain space where the wireless signal covers? What are some long term repercussions of this decision?

Wireless Quilts Locally

This week's Independent has good coverage of the public wireless situation in the Triangle and about the ways things have gotten complicated down in Laurinburg, NC.
See this entry in my blog for links and more

Long Tail - Chris Anderson's blog

http://longtail.typepad.com/ is Wired Editor-in-Chief, Chris Anderson's ongoing blog that came from his article, The Long Tail (Wired, October 2004), and is going toward his proposed book to published by Hyperion, in early 2006.
You may also be interested in the Wikipedia article on The Long Tail as well.

Imageshack.us

Imageshack is a really cool image hosting service, similar to Flickr in that it creates the links for you so all you have to do is paste them in your blog.

The site is also different for you don't have to login to upload an image..you can just do it on the fly.

Check it out.

http://imageshack.us

Slashdot | Google's Library Up and Running

Speaking of libraries...

"Google has partnered with several major libraries to digitize their collections and make them searchable on Google Print."

http://print.google.com/googleprint/about.html

...and another short article on slashdot

Slashdot | Google's Library Up and Running

The slashdot article says that you can actually find some full text results under "Book results." I've tried and it doesn't work for me, maybe you'll have better luck.

Deals struck for campus video on demand

"Cdigix, a company that provides online music subscription services to college campuses, said it has struck deals with Disney and Turner Broadcasting System to offer students access to videos," says the short article. From this article, it sounds like they are trying to offer a service similar to Time Warner's movies on demand/iCONTROL. But I wonder who would pay that much for movies anymore with Netflix available. I understand that they are trying to stop illegal downloads, but $4 per movie will not do it in my opinion.

Some new announcements from eTech Conference

Chris DiBona, who is now OpenSource Project manager at Google, announced http://code.google.com. Note that Google is using SourceForge to host their open projects. Chris named SourceForge back in the day. We still run a SourceForge download mirror on ibiblio.org

Larry Lessig announced that his book, Code, will be available for update via wiki beginning today (hosted by JotSpot)

Odeo the podcasting company presented (but not live or even in Beta quite yet).

BBC's Paula Le Dieu will be heading up the Creative Commons International efforts from London. Le Dieu has been working on BBS's very large Creative Archive project which will continue.

Jeff Bezos announced and demoed A9.com's openSearch.

Yahoo Tech Labs announced the Tech Buzz Market Game.

O'Reilly announced their new Where Conference to take place June 29 - 30 in SFO. It will:

explore the emerging consumer and enterprise ecosystems around location-aware technologies--ecosystems that increasingly impact the way we work and play. Location-determining technologies like GPS, RFID, WLAN, cellular networks and networked sensors enable an ever-growing array of capabilities from local search, mapping, and business analytics to enterprise integration, commercial applications, and software infrastructure.

Bloglines/Ask Jeeves purchase explained. (in more details that the article that I linked to there).

Protect Your Private Information From Google Desktop Search!

Discussions about Google’s desktop search tool allowing access to other user’s private information came up before already. Here is some info about how to protect your private data from people who do not know too much about computers. :-)

Have you heard of SXSW?

I have not before today… SXSW is an Austin, Texas company that is focusing on “building and delivering conference and festival events for entertainment and related media industry professionals.” They are running their SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL right now (March 11 – 15), and it seems like that is a place to be for techies to share their creative ideas about interactive technologies. This article talks mainly about how British bands have been invading the US market, but it also has some links to some good PR resources.

Wireless Usage Cultures

Here is another article which discuses the differences in (Mobil) phone usage between European countries and the States. Besides contrasting phone usage: “teenagers in Athens, Georgia, talk on their fixed line phone for four hours a day while those in Athens, Greece, are sending four text messages on their mobile phones,” the article goes into the economical aspects of the phone business around the world.

Big p2p move in Microsoft's near future

Today Microsoft bought Groove Networks, the p2p software being used by our troops in Iraq. Along with the purchase came Ray Ozzie who created Lotus Notes and Groove. Ozzie will become the Chief Technical Officer of Microsoft reporting directly to Bill Gates and bypassing Steve Ballmer.
Expect big changes and very new products from Microsoft soon. Changes that will bring more p2p, more blogging, more futures like those predicted by the Museum of Media History.

Museum of Media History (2014)

In case you haven't seen this 8 minute movie that follows the development of the Web, Google, Amazon, Blogger, Friendster, Newsbot and others to their logical conclusions, you will enjoy their projections of a future for the next 10 years.

Las Preguntas para Miércoles

1. Rheingold mentions the development of “distributed reputation systems for ad-hoc wearable computer communities.” How do you feel about this prospect? Think about it in terms of RFID tags as discussed in Monday’s class: what do you think of the possibility that anyone with a cellphone or PDA might one day be able to pull up your “reputation” score on the spot by interfacing with an RFID tag stored in your personal device or credit card? How would this effect social interaction in general?

2. The chapter points out the emergence of systems where reputation serves as a social reward in itself, perhaps granting the user esteem, personal gratification, or making it easier to interface with other people in the community. Do you think that people would participate in a system that did not feature a reputation system of some sort, where there was no way for them to enjoy any personal effects? For example, do you think a community where every user listed as anonymous would survive?

3. In a similar vein, do you think it would be at all possible to have a commercial community that functioned and grew without an underlying reputation system? That is to say, could websites like eBay exist if there was no way to check a seller’s reputation? Rheingold says no, but what do you personally think? Can you think of an example?

4. When someone has an opinion of someone else in the “real world,” we can easily evaluate that opinion based on what we know of the beholder – i.e. if Bob says that Jack is a liar and a horse-thief, we might brush it off, since we might also know that Bob himself is a convicted felon and notorious liar. Similarly, Bob might never make such a statement to begin with, knowing full well that Jack is a trained cage-fighter and would kick him in the face. Online communities, however, have the added attribute of anonymity. Bob could create a new user account, slander Jack, and then disappear, either creating a new account or leaving the site in general. Thus, Jack’s reputation is harmed, while Bob skips off without fear of retribution. Based on this example and on human ficklness in general, can one really trust an online reputation system? Similarly, how can new users starting with no reputation gain trust to begin with?

Electronic Reputations

1. Electronic reputations have become a virtual "gold standard" for purchasing products online. What standards do you use before purchasing online products? How much does the person's reputation factor into that decision? What metric do you use in determining a trustworthy individual?

2. In an electronic society there is a potential for someone to steal someone's authentication information and impersonate another individual. If this impersonator tarnishes their reputation, how does one go about restoring their reputation again? Additionally, what would this individual have to do for you to "trust" them again?

3. Rheingold talks about group moderation systems such as with Slashdot. Can you think of an example where group moderation is not the most appropriate system? Can group moderation lead to censorship of ideas or will the consensus of the group create a moderate equilibrium?

4. "Ballot stuffing" and "bad mouthing" were two method of cheating in an electronic reputation system? Can you think of anyway to prevent or stifle these actions? Moreover, how can you gauge whether your proposed system would be effective?

5. Here's a scenario: You go to a local Pepsi machine and notice that when you hit a button it dispenses a drink, free-of-charge. Inquisitively you press another button and the exact same action occurs again, you receive another free drink. You notice that there is a group of individuals approaching this "magical" machine. Do you tell the group about the charitable machine or do you allow them to pay for their drink and leave? Why?

Blogging as Journalism, with nods to Dan Gillmor

Slashdot is pimping yet another article regarding the Apple/Think Secret court case. This time the discussion is based around the court's refusal to extend journalistic protection to those involved. What's really cool about the article, however, is that it mentions postings by our new-found homeboy, Dan Gillmor. According to his blog, Dan's gone and filed declarations of support in the court case; tear 'em up, D!

-Bertito

Evolution of Reputation

Pattie Maes
Alexa
Brewster Kahle (2004)
ePinions
Slashdot
Paul Resnick
GroupLens
MovieLens
Reputations Research Network
Chris Dellarocas
Marc Smith at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
Technorati Top 100

Virtual technology you can actually afford (sort of)

A virtual keyboard??? Check out this small projector you can connect to your palm pilot that serves as a keyboard. A laser projects a keyboard outline on any flat surface to create a virtual keyboard and this thing actually works.

http://www.internity.co.uk/vkb.asp

http://www.time.com/time/2002/inventions/rob_keyboard.html

http://www.canesta.com/canestakeyboard.htm

http://www.alpern.org/weblog/stories/2003/01/09/projectionKeyboards.html

SOme predictions about RFID and Mobile markets

This article by Deloitte, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6841062/ outlines the growth curve for the mobile telephony industry and mentions that some markets have now surpassed 100% saturation. Which means that more customers are either using two cell phones or more people are finally using digital cellular for data transmission. Maybe smart phones with RFID capability aren't that far away...

Era of Sentient Things. continued...

Continuing on Hinar's coverage of this chapter, a few additional questions:

Entending question 13 - Is conversation, and/or human interaction, actually improved by "easy access to Google"? Does having this information at our fingertips take away anything from "traditional" social interaction? Is it then our duty to be "correct" (accurate?) with these technologies available at all times/places?

As the Internet became more available and more popular, so did those attempting to profit from it. What about spy-ware, ad-ware, hacking, and advertising in a world where the physical, intellectual, and cyber -- environments have been merged?

If we are to change the physical world into something augmented by constant access to information, the internet, and cyber-interaction --- then who will push us into "tommorrow". This chapter mentions several large corporations that seem to have a vested interest - or will it come from the open-source community?
If either succeeds then what about our big brother - the Government. They like to have at least some level of control over everything and there is no doubt that this would be included. Would government participation be a hinderence or helpful?
Does the government even belong in this conversation?

The Era of Sentient Things Questions

1. According to Rheingold, virtual reality has been around for quite a while (since at least 1990), but for most of this time we only saw it as an instrument of simulations and video games. What other uses can you imagine for virtual reality in the future? Internet chats and instant messaging being so popular these days, I can imagine a new kind of communication on-line, where participants do not only have an alternative identity in their names, conversations and picture icons, but they also get to have a virtual physical appearance. This could be extended into a virtual role-play on-line.
2. This leads to another possible future community, where people meet in a virtual world, and where they might interact with people by sharing not only words but gestures also. Can you think of reasons why someone would interact this way rather than in reality (anonymity)?
3. The book talks about the “Marriage of Bits and Atoms.” Do you think connecting the physical and the virtual reality with emerging technologies only leads to a more advanced use of technology, or could we learn more about the real world around us by knowing more about computer bits?
4. Do you use a GPS? What are you mainly using it for? Mobile devices with wireless internet access are still relatively expensive, so onsite location-information retrieval is still hard to achieve. Would you use a GPS so that you can use and share information about locations and objects in your community, even if it means that you have to retrieve and upload data before or after you visit the places?
5. Do you think devices and different ‘things’ in general could make our world safer if we used sentient objects (Smart holograms)? For example, how would you feel if guns would be programmed to monitor their targets and would not work against humans (and animals either if you asked me :-)? What would be their ethical and privacy related aspects?
6. With satellite cameras that can spot relatively small objects almost anywhere around the world, and with location devices like the ankle cuffs the book mentions that can also be traced, people could be monitored at all times in the future (especially with technology improving so rapidly). The book also talks about smart rooms and outfits that interact with the people wearing them. Would they allow faster medial responses to illnesses or accidents (Running Shoe from Adidas/Pervasive patient monitoring)? Would that allow an even further monitoring of previously convicted persons? Where is the border between making our lives safer and giving up our privacy?
7. Does Ivan Sutherland’s “ultimate display” sound like a scene from The Matrix? Will computers/we be able to create matter? Who knows? The present administration is researching the possibilities of teleportation already… “Beam me up, Scotty!”
8. Would you like a handheld that can read the RFID tags’ radio signals and download information about products from the internet? Would manufacturers like that?
9. Would you like the RFID tags to be removed after you bought your product or track them throughout their lifecycles?
10. Would making things around us smart and not dependent on our instructions and interactions decrease our obligations to know how the world around us works (evolution of computers vs. devolution of us)?
11. Could wearable computers that remove advertisement from our lives develop and become popular in a customer-targeted economy we live in?
12. Doesn’t becoming a Cyborg still scare you?
13. Knowledge and information shared and retrieved instantly would definitely ‘extend’ our memory capabilities. Would it reduce our capability of thinking?

The Era of Sentient Things

VR at UNC
Elumens
Steve Mann
Cooltown is now Bazaar
Warren Robinett
Websigns
Smart Dust at Berkeley
Roadblocks to RFIDs in Cnet 2/19/04
Steve Bellovin
Marcel Waldvogel
FDA on RFID for Drugs
RFID Journal
Wikipedia on RFID
Wikipedia on Smart Dust
Center for Bits and Atoms
Neil Gershenfeld

UNC makes the top 500

Check out #395 on the list.

http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/


A cluster of linux blades within our very own baobab complex made the top 500 list back in November of 2003. We've long since dropped of the list, I guess that's why we couldn't find it in class.

**Thanks to Tonya Heath of ITS for this info.**

Ok ok ... I promise no more (after this) about blogs.

I don't know how many of you read the DTH regularly (other than for the crossword) but this article contains a reaction to a conservative political blog written by a student here at UNC.

Although the article does not give the location or name of the blogger, many students on campus were able to find it (like I did).

Political / Ethical beliefs aside, I was wondering what everyone thought about this incident. I personally worry that events such as this will encourage self-censorship. I mean, my blog entries aren't nearly as controversial but even still, the idea that something that I haphazardly type in my blog could become campus controversy...spooky.

Information Security and Paranoia

There is one issue I have been thinking about for a long time. It seems like the more information we share and is available, the more paranoid we get. Is it because we are more aware of security treats in our environment, or is it a 21st century sociological change in us? We hear news about attempts to steal people’s identities or at least their credit card numbers, almost every day. We make our passwords extremely complicated and think twice before we give out information about ourselves. Does paranoia naturally come with being aware of the dangers of the modern world, or are we loosing our trust in other people and humanity? This mind sound a little harsh and too philosophical, but I am interested in what you think about how much worrying is too much.

World Community Grid

No sooner than I get my office back from the rewiring folks, I get a note from a researcher at IBM asking for faculty who have proposals that might like use the World Community Grid for their work.
Just like many of the projects that Rheingold writes about in today's chapter, the WCG project uses idle computer cycles for grid computer work. The difference is that WCG is designed to be flexible rather than special purpose (it could do SETI or Folding or whatever). Their smallpox case study is particularly interesting -- good to read of a success.
Imagine that you had a complex problem that you wanted to solve using WCG, what would it be?

P2P-American Cancer Society

Rheingold talks at length about SETI@home and briefly mentions other, similar projects. An article by the American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/MED/content/MED_2_1X_Intel_and_Scientific_Community_Announce_Cancer_Research_Program.asp) goes into more detail, providing deeper insight into the goals of the researchers and computers. The article depicts this form of peer-to-peer technology as a type of computer philanthropy as opposed to a pastime activity.

Computation Nations and Swarm Supercomputers Questions

1) Has anyone participated in distributed processing projects such as SETI@home ? – why did you participate, would you participate in similar project ?

2) Does it bother you that organizations are using your resources for free? Would you be more willing to let your computer participate if you were compensated (with maybe a couple cents for its time/power) ? Should compensation be calculated on processor speed and time allocated?

3) Should we allow individuals/organizations to profit off such projects, or should we prohibit the profitability, because we think it is for a good cause?

4) Are programs as such an invasion of privacy? Spy ware programs consume system resources, most people don’t enjoy them. Why allow something to use your resources for free—that could potentially monitor your behavior? Why do millions of people trust these organizations to put software on the system, when it could easily include malicious applications?

5) Will volunteering computer power really work to solve complex problems?
What about the validity and reliability of the data processed on individuals computers—can organizations trust it? Processors and disk storage is becoming more and more inexpensive, should companies be forced to purchase the necessary resources or can they rely on others ?

6) In the future do you think people need to be forced to share, or will people continue to share because they think they are “right” thing to do?

Computation Nation and Swarm Supercomputers

Cory Doctorow
SETI@home
Folding@home
MGM v Grokster
Dan Bricklin
Cornucopia of the Commons
Gnutella
OpenCOLA
Larry Smarr
Larry Smarr at CIT
Doubts in California (about Smarr ad CITRIS)

Technologies of Cooperation_Questions

With regards to the "cornucopia of commons,"
where do you think the internet stands today?
Should there be a move towards a more/less open innovation commons?
Universities have been stuggling with this issue already (some schools have stopped using file sharing programs), what side should UNC support?

Rheingold talks about social capital in the internet.
Do you think this social capital has actual power to affect change now and in the future?
Can you descibe any current situations where social capital may be the driving force behind a technology?

Rheingold give many examples of social capital and corporations in the US:
Do other countries/regions seem to be moving towards a more open/restricted commons?
Is this important or a threat to US corportations and innovations?

Technologies of Cooperation

I found an interesting example of an IT application of the problem described as the "Prisoner's Dilemma" in the Rheingold book.

http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/IT1.html

I also feel that game theory has infinite applications in the business world due to the continuous problem of companies being forced (through economies of scale or governmental action) to work together while at the same time trying to be competitive against each other. Politics seems to follow a similar strategy but it seems to me that all parties involved in policy-making are fully aware of their own agenda and there is a sort-of mutual assured back-stabbing.

Maybe you all have some other examples of people actually working together in industry, such as the Cell project and etc.