December 26, 2011
Noam Chomsky on Intellectual Property
Franco Iacomella,
P2P Foundation, December 26, 2011.
This is how invention works. We see it time and time again. In the words of Noam Chomsky: "the techniques were invented by some small guy, you know working in his garage somewhere in, I think, Michigan. Actually when the MIT mechanical engineering department learned about it they picked them up and they developed them and extended them and so on. And then the corporations came in and picked them up from them, and finally it became a core part of US industry. Well, what happened to the guy who invented it? He’s still probably working in his garage in Michigan, or wherever it is." The funny thing is, when the government wants to foster innovation and development, it mistakenly focuses on the MITs and the corporations, failing to realize that the people you really need to support are the people working in their garages. Via David Wiley, who focuses on the IP part of the transcribed talk. Image via ASTD.
iPhone of the Future May Be Powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Stan Schroeder,
Mashable, December 26, 2011.
We may have to wait a while for Apple fuel-celled phones, and we may even get them from someone other than Apple, as patent applications tend to be somewhat speculative, but designs are being submitted and so we have the potential for phones and computers that run for days rather than hours without recharging.
Educational Publishers Appear to be Supporting SOPA
Phil Hill,
e-Literate, December 24, 2011.
Not surprisingly, educational publishers are supporting onerous and unpopular copyright legislation in the United States. "While no one should be surprised that education publishers support SOPA, as the bill is designed to protect content and media companies, I suspect that this support will come back to haunt these supporters. There is a strong backlash growing against SOPA, and if it is enacted as law, this backlash will grow exponentially." Companies listed as being in support of the bill include Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill Education, Macmillan, Scholastic, and others.
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