While Linus Torvalds is best known as the creator of Linux, it's one of his more geeky creations, and the social implications of its design, that may well end up being his greatest legacy. Because Linus has, in just a few short years, changed the social dynamic around forking, turning the idea of multiple versions of a work from a cultural weakness into a cultural strength. Perhaps the technologies that let us easily collaborate together online have finally matured enough to let our work reflect the reality that some problems are better solved with lots of different efforts instead of one committee-built compromise.

The idea of "open source" in the technology world is really a set of cultural beliefs, despite usually masquerading as technical or legal choices made by a community. All cultures have norms, and standards of behavior, and most importantly, they have behaviors they consider antisocial or destructive.

For most of the first three decades of open source's ascendance, the most destructive action that one could threaten to do, the nuclear option, was to fork.

Tuning

There are several related technical concepts that can answer to the name "fork", but the one I reference here is the dramatic moment when a software project undergoes a schism on ideological or technical grounds. Instead of merely taking their ball and going home, those who forked were taking a copy of your ball and going to a new playground. And while splitting a community could obviously cause an open source community's momentum to grind to a halt, even the mere threat of a fork could cause significant problems, by revealing conflicting goals or desires or motivations within a previously-united community.

Still, forks have had important consequences. Firefox (earlier Firebird and Phoenix) was originally a fork of Mozilla, the open source browser that had been mired in indecision for half a decade. WordPress was born as a fork of B2, a neglected early blogging tool.

Outside of tech, forks have an even bigger meaning. You could make a pretty strong argument that the Reformation was a fork, or that Christianity itself is a fork. So clearly, forking a community can have a significant, even profound impact. But in tech, it had largely been seen solely as a violent, schismatic action.

Part of the predicate for forks being so disruptive was the idea that there is One True Version a creation, like a piece of software, a written work, or anything else, that can only be accurately represented by a single ideal expression. Even some of the most disruptive technological innovations like Wikipedia are still built around the idea of achieving consensus on a definitive work, and striving mightily to avoid forks arising within the community.

Until a git named Linus changed that.

In The Road

You know Linus Torvalds, he's the guy who created (and nearly eponymized) Linux. But perhaps his most impressive act of creating technological culture is in fathering Git, the enormously popular distributed revision control system. That mouthful of a description basically means "system that lets a decentralized group of creators efficiently collaborate on a complicated bit of software". Other systems had enabled distributed revision control before, making it easier to rapidly evolve software, and to appropriately assign blame to whomever had introduced a bug into the program, but few had found any notable degree of popularity.

But Linus' pedigree, influence and outstanding implementation immediately put Git at the forefront of choices to solve this class of problem. Even better, his credibility with the new generation of social software creators inspired the rapid launch and brilliant evolution of GitHub, a social network for developers that relies on the technology of Git as its underpinnings, but has also embraced the philosophy of Git as its fundamental interaction model.

Often, the very first thing a coder does when she sees an interesting new project on GitHub is to make a fork of it and start tinkering. That's only one of the reasons that GitHub so important, though; The GitHub principle of "see it, make your own version, and then get to work" has started to filter into other disciplines, as exemplified by design sites like Dribbble, and upcoming new sites for creatives such as Forrst.

These new sites are admittedly still in their formative stages Dribbble just had its breakout moment with the recent popularity of redesigning the iTunes icon but it's easy to imagine a more mature version where, instead of merely focusing on the pretty pixels on the screen, the designers who frequent the site were encouraged to describe their rationale, and to use the site's replying abilities (called "rebounds"on Dribble) to do something more akin to forking, where raw Photoshop and Illustrator files were shared.

The One True Version

Most importantly, the new culture of ubiquitous forking can have profound impacts on lots of other categories of software. There have been recent rumblings that participation in Wikipedia editing has plateaued, or even begun to decline. Aside from the (frankly, absurd) idea that "everything's already been documented!" one of the best ways for Wikipedia to reinvigorate itself, and to break away from the stultifying and arcane editing discussions that are its worst feature, could be to embrace the idea that there's not One True Version of every Wikipedia article.

A new-generation Wikipedia based on Git-style technologies could allow there to be not just one Ocelot article per language, but an infinite number of them, each of which could be easily mixed and merged into your own preferred version. Wikipedia already technically has similar abilities on the back end, of course, but the software's cultural bias is still towards producing a definitive consensus version instead of seeing multiple variations as beneficial.

There are plenty of other cultural predecessors for the idea of forking, all demonstrating that moving away from the need for a forced consensus can be great for innovation, while also reducing social tensions. Our work on ThinkUp at Expert Labs has seen a tremendous increase in programmers participating, without any of the usual flame wars or antagonism that frequently pop up on open source mailing lists. Some part of that is attributable to the cultural infrastructure GitHub providers for participation.

Moving forward, there are a lot more lessons we can learn if we build our social tools with the assumption that no one version of any document, app, or narrative needs to be the definitive one. We might even make our software, and our communities, more inclusive if we embrace the forking ourselves.

Why were you in China? asked the passport control officer, a woman with the appearance and disposition of a prison matron.

None of your business, I said.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

Excuse me? she asked.

I'm not going to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country, I said.

This did not go over well. She asked a series of questions, such as how long I had been in China, whether I was there on personal business or commercial business, etc. I stood silently. She said that her questions were mandated by Congress and that I should complain to Congress instead of refusing to cooperate with her.

She asked me to take one of my small bags off her counter. I complied.

She picked up the phone and told someone I was refusing to cooperate at all. This was incorrect. I had presented her with proof of citizenship (a U.S. passport) and had moved the bag when she asked. What I was refusing to do was answer her questions.

A male Customs and Border Protection officer appeared to escort me to Secondary. He tried the good cop routine, cajoling me to just answer a few questions so that I could be on my way. I repeated that I refused to be interrogated as a pre-condition of re-entering my own country.

Am I free to go? I asked.

No, he said.

Filed under: Games, Apple, iPhone

Apple features first wave of Game Center-enabled games in App Store originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gesture controls where you wave your hands in the air and make something happen on a display are coming on strong as a new way to control game machines, TVs, and computers.

The latest proof is $10 million in funding for in3Depth Systems, a holding company with gesture-control subsidiaries. in3Depth is the parent company for Brussels-based Softkinetic, which makes software for gesture-control systems, and Optrima, a maker of gesture-recognition cameras. And Softkinetic Studios is making its own gesture-control video games.

The point is to create a one-stop shop to jumpstart a gesture-control business. In time, gesture-control technology will become as pervasive in user interfaces as the touchscreen and accelerometer have become in smartphones, said Michel Tombroff, chief executive of Softkinetic.

Optrima makes 3D camera sensors that can detect how far away an object is from a camera. The sensors can detect 3D space and anything moving within it. So it can detect whether you are standing still or waving your hands at the camera. Softkinetic takes input from the cameras and turns it into controls for electronic devices.

With 3D gesture controls, you can control something without using a remote control or game controller. You just wave your hands. Microsoft is using such as system with technology from 3DV Systems and PrimeSense for its Kinect gesture control system for the Xbox 360. Kinect will sell for $149 and will launch in November. You can use it to control everything from fighting games, in which you act out the punches, to sports games, in which you mimic sports moves.

In software, Microsoft is a rival of Softkinetics. The in3Depth technology is being targeted at a variety of applications, including set-top boxes, TVs, game consoles and computers. It is also being pitched to clients in interactive marketing and advertising, digital signs, healthcare and the military. Partners include Texas Instruments, Belgian telecommunications operator Belgacom, Internet TV provider Metrological, and Panasonic.

While the technology has been in development for some time, the funding is encouraging, as are the new partnerships the company has announced.

The $10 million is the first part of a second round of funding from Belgacom, Hunza Ventures and SRIW Techno. The company will use the financing to expand its technology development and commercialization. Softkinetic was founded in 2007 while Optrima was started in 2009. Altogether, in3Depth has 45 employees. Hardware rivals include Canesta and PrimeSense.

Tags: 3D gesture recognition, gesture control

Companies: Belgacom, Hunza Ventures, in3Depth Systems, Optrima, Softkinetic, Softkinetic Studios, SRIWTechno

People: Michel Tombroff

A little over a week ago, I profiled Apple's Game Center. The title of that post? Apple's Keynote App-solutely changes the games. At that time my contention was that portable gaming device manufacturers, namely Sony and Nintendo, had better fear the fruit's new feature. Game Center to me spelled doom for portable gaming device manufacturers and Apple would take a huge bite out of their business.

Full disclosure: I love Apple (sounds like a line from Anchorman). Outside of one Android phone, all computers, both of the desktop and laptop varieties, the phones of my legally bound female life partner, our tablet computers, ect are all made by Apple.

That said, it is with much sadness that I stand before you and say, My name is Jeff and I am extremely disappointed (at this point) by Apple's Game Center. Here's why

The Opening Screen:

Apple designs wonderful products (before you comment note that yes, I am aware of the recent iPhone 4 antenna issues). They are easy to use, last an incredibly long time, and are aesthetically pleasing. The last point being one of my first issues with Game Center. The opening screen is hideous. See for yourself:

My nickname font? Deplorable. The brown, green and yellow hues? Vomit-inducing. Add those disgusting features to what I guess are three ugly-colored ribbons? in the middle with Friends, Games, and Achievements, and you have a screen that looks like someone melted a box of old crayons on your iPhone's screen.

The Friends Screen:

Grand. Same font and color scheme. As you can see, my colleague at The Next Web, Tris Hussey, and I are playing the same game! Hooray?

What a downer for one's Game Center friends or yourself when you see that not only might you rank lower than a friend in a particular game you both play, but the Unfriend ribbon is, outside of your friend's name, the largest item on the screen. A slip of the finger and there would go my only friend. Not only that but finding friends? Not the easiest thing to do.

The Games:

We at The Next Web gave the Game Center a good day to grow. The chief reason was that there were no games to play. That's since changed and not in a good way. The only reason Tris and I are playing Flight Control is because it was one of the more inexpensive games in the Game Center and people seem to enjoy it.

As of the writing of this post, there where only 29 games in the Game Center, two of which involved farming, with most ranging in price from $2.99-$4.99. Yes, PAC-MAN is $4.99. Why the high price? Game Center support is the great new feature. Sorry PAC-MAN but I can play you for free online.

One last note on the games. Angry Birds where are you? You were featured in the Keynote, yet you, my favorite iPhone game is no where to be found in the Game Center. Nice.

I'm sure there are those that will argue neither Rome, nor the Game Center was built in a day. To that I agree. However, with colors so violently gross, fonts equally as hideous, and featured games (I'm looking at you Angry Birds) are not in the Game Center, but FarmVille is, what you get from the Game Center at this juncture is nothing more than a rotten apple.

In conclusion, here's what I would like to see, and see quickly, changed about Game Center.

• Overhaul the entire color and font scheme.
• Integrate social networks to find friends. Again, I have one, so if you want to be my friend, jffcrmr is my handle.
• Add new games at lower prices, and for those games featured that I already own, update, update, update.

Will I continue to use Game Center? Of course, but it is with a squeamish feeling in my stomach that I do so. Again, I love Apple and their products, but certain features of Game Center at present need a new life. Yes, even one day into it's existence.

What are your thoughts? What do you like/dislike about Game Center?

Original title and link for this post: Apple's Game Center needs an extra life. Now.

I do have a confession to make. It's not a confession that should require the services of the clergy, but a lot of people have been surprised when I've told them about it.

I have an iPad.

There are lots of good arguments against it becoming the ubiquitous computing platform, however as a standalone interface, I've found it to be a pretty good tool that's useful in more ways than I imagined before I bought it.

Honestly, one of the ways that it has surprised me is how useful it is in meetings. If I needed to research something, I'd have to do it on a laptop. Then if I wanted to show someone, I'd turn the laptop around, and it would be on the screen. Now, with the iPad, I hand it to them. It seems like such a small insignificant difference, but there's a visceral change when you hold a piece of information in your hands literally. It has both literal and figurative weight.

Of course, if it were just a web browser, it would be a novelty. The key is that you can install apps on it. Yes, there are lots of problems with the app store (and their app approval methods), and a lot of the apps in the store are rubbish, but there are some gems in there as well.

Deep down at the very bottom of my sysadmin heart, I'm pragmatic. If something works, I use it. If not, I don't. The iPad works for what I use it for, so I use it. Also, I absolutely love Harbor Master.

So aside from web browsing, what can the iPad do for us in our job roles? As it turns out, quite a lot, provided we abide by some ground rules that are enforced by the limitations of the device.

1. No tactile keyboard

If you want to type a significant amount, you need a bluetooth keyboard, which severely limits the mobility of the device.

2. The resolution is fixed.

If you attempt to access resources with higher resolutions, the display will either scale (and become nigh unreadable) or you will scroll

3. The only VPN access on the iPad is for a Cisco ASA-series SSL VPN.

If you want to access corporate resources, you need an Adaptive Security Appliance from Cisco, or you need to be on your internal network via wifi, or you need to have your corporate resources available over the internet.

That last one is the killer for me. It essentially means that I can only use the tools on my iPad while I'm at work. Lots of people have the Cisco hardware and licenses to make the VPN work, though, and there are a decent number of people doing business on the public cloud, in which case the tools may be handy. If so, great! Just be warned about what you're up against.

So now that you know whether or not you can use the apps, what apps should you get? There are tons. Over 250,000. Lots of them are crap, though. Even ignoring the stupid fart apps, what makes a sysadmin-related app good? In my mind, there are a few things to look for.

1. It doesn't see itself as the center of the world

There are a lot of apps I've seen that do very useful things, except that they make big assumptions. Computer Inventory is a great example. Having an app on the iPad that could enter information into your asset database would be great! Unfortunately, Computer Inventory writes to an internal database. As far as I can tell, you can't even export it to a CSV file. Lovely.

Much better would be Decision Manager, which ties into OCS / GLPI, which is software you run on an inventory server. This app does have the disadvantage of being written in French, but even so, it's still more useful than a piece of software which can't export the information entered into it.

2. It doesn't do things wholly unfit for a mobile device

Would you use a pocket camera to do security monitoring of your front door? Of course not, you want to carry it with you, and it's not set up to do the kind of continual feed that is useful for that anyway.

So why, then, are there so many crappy network monitors that do monitoring from the iPad? If you're doing network monitoring from your iPad, trust me, you're doing it wrong.

Instead, use something like TouchMon for Nagios or iPRTG for PRTG. These are apps which connect to the dedicated servers already running on your network and display the information locally.

The strength of the mobile device is that it's mobile, not that it's a computing powerhouse.

3. If you're going to pay for an app, make sure it does something worth paying for

Would you pay a buck for an app that does nothing except lets you query whois? Me neither. But someone wrote it and charges that for it. That's pretty miserable. There are a plethora of other apps that do the same thing, some of them with added functionality that's also very basic. Network Ping, for instance, will let you ping, traceroute, telnet, and even ping a subnet. Of course, it's $4, and that seems expensive to me for something that I can do at a shell prompt.

I don't want to use this blog to advocate anything illegal, and fortunately, I don't have to. I recommend jailbreaking your iPad. Yes, it's unsupported, but it's also easy to do, and it's easy to reverse. Doing so gives extra functionality to your device, and allows you to install software that you're probably going to be very familiar with, at least if you're a UNIX/Linux admin. All of the functionality of the $4 app above (and way, way more) is available via the command line utilities that do the same thing. They just need installed using Cydia or one of the other software installers available to a jailbroken iOS device.

There are some apps that I've installed and use, and there are others that people have recommended to me on twitter. I can't personally speak for all of them, but they sound useful and good for the most part. Several of them do similar things, so I'll try to group them by utility.

Remote Access (terminal)
iSSH is the gold standard for remote terminal apps. It includes VT100, VT102, VT220, ANSI, xterm, and xterm-color terminal emulator over SSH and telnet, integrated with a tunneled X server and VNC client. Say it with methat's hot.

The existence of good terminal emulators hasn't stopped people from solving specialized problems, sometimes very cleanly. MyRouters Pro, for instance, simplifies logging in to your Cisco routers and devices. It supports multiple concurrent connections and also macros. Interesting sounding software!

Remote Access (GUI)
Desktop Connect is a pretty smooth looking single pane of glass for RDP and VNC. At $15, it's expensive, but not as expensive as solutions like iTap RDP and iTap VNC, each of which are $12.

Coming in at $15 as well is the Wyse PocketCloud Remote Desktop. It seems to be the market leader, in terms of remote desktop solutions, and from the screenshots, you can see why. The unique mouse pointer menu system looks handy, and while I haven't shelled out money for one of these solutions yet, if I did, it would be for this one.

As far as I can tell, LogMeIn Ignition is a remote desktop solution, but only for Macs. If you're in a mixed environment, it's probably not worth it, but it apparently works pretty well if you're in a mac shop, as it's got dedicated keyboard buttons at the bottom for the click-modifiers.

Remote Control
Sometimes, all you want is to control the screen in front of you. Having a keyboard and mouse on your couch is bulky and uncomfortable. Having one for every machine attached to a NOC display may not be possible. The software I use for my media-PC-sans-keyboard-and-mouse problem is Mobile Mouse. Essentially, it lets the iPad function like a giant touchscreen, and it works great. At $3, it's slightly cheaper than the other option I found out about, creatively called touchpad, which costs $5.

Service & Solution Administration
Citrix caught on to the remote desktops pretty quickly and wrote Citrix Receiver to fill the need for an iPad app to access your network-based machines simply.

If you've got a Rackspace server (or several), you may already know about Rackspace Cloud Pro, an app that allows you to manage your servers and storage.

I don't run Mac servers anymore. They're toowellweird, for my tastes (at least, the old headless Xserve compute nodes we had were). If I did still run macs, You can bet that I'd have this app. It's Server Admin Remote, which manages the services as though you were sitting at the administrative console in Server Manager.

Troubleshooting
UDP Tools is a cool idea. It's sort of like a graphical netcat which only does UDP. There's also one for TCP, but that's called telnet

syslogger is a tool which allows you to send a syslog message to the syslog server of your choice. It only speaks UDP, but assuming you've got syslog listening for remote connections, you can spit out messages at it from your iPad using this.

I'm not usually a fan of crappy visual traceroute programs. They're typically kludgy, buggy, and most of the apps cost money for something that is, in all reality, pointless. Vtrace, however, is at least free. So if you like maps with dots and lines, try this one.

Monitoring & Security
The aforementioned touchmon is an iPhone app for checking the statuses reported by a Nagios server. It doesn't require any modifications to the Nagios server itself. It seems to just scrape the html and interpret the statuses itself, so if you've customized your CGIs, it probably won't work, but it seems pretty handy otherwise.

iStat should be included just for the interface. It's a way to see the stats of a remote machine at a glance, and it's pretty. Unfortunately it also requires installation of a monitoring program, so it's probably not worth it.

If you run network-based security cameras, there's at least a decent chance that they're by Axis. If they are, then you, too, can feel like you're on CSI with the Viewer for Axis Cameras. I don't have any of these, so I don't have this program, but I imagine that it allows you to view as many cameras as you've got. If you hear anything different (or you try it out) let me know!

Aanval, which connects to an Aanval server, which performs snort & syslog IDS.

iCacti Server Monitor is about all I can ask for in a an app, aside from the $4 price tag. It connects to an existing monitoring server, displays graphs clearly and cleanly, and has real value in displaying trends to people in meetings.

Reference & Information Management
The Omnigraffle app is probably going to be the most expensive on this list at $50, but if you make diagrams (and you have a Mac with Omnigraffle), it's absolutely worth it. You can share diagrams and stencils from the full Mac version, and being able to organize your thoughts on the ipad is great. The interface is complex, because there are so many options, and it takes a while to get the hang of it, but the reward is worth the time spent.

Evernote is a great piece of software for organizing those bits of information that you'd otherwise jot down on napkins or spare bits of paper, or whatever you've got with you. Since your computer can't follow you around, the iPhone and iPad are natural extensions of this software. The best part is that your notes are synced everywhere, so if you make a note on your iPad, when you get back to your computer, it's there too. Very handy.

dhcp-options provides on-the-fly reference of all of the dhcp options available, and what they mean.

In the end, if the iPad doesn't fit your work flow, there's no reason to use it, but if you are always looking for better ways to access information, then maybe you should give it a shot. Although it's not the end-all be-all of computing, I've found it to be a useful tool, and I have to admit, sometimes I feel like I'm on Star Trek when I'm using a piece of hardware that small and that powerful.

I want to thank everyone who pitched in app suggestions on twitter. I'm sure that I left off some great ones. If I didn't include your favorite app, paste it in the comments below. Thanks!

Shared by spavis
i love my roku. great for streaming netflix.
great deal from woot, $30 cheaper than roku's recent price drop. a bargain!
on sale today, Sept 9th 2010, only.

Beaucoup Roku

Move over, last month's modelnow there's something media

If you bought the Roku model we sold on August 16th, you're probably just now beginning to understand the degree to which it's going to improve your life.

You're probably parked in front of your television, watching all your favorite movies and television shows from Netflix and Amazon and whencever else quality programming is streamed. You're probably smirking with smug satisfaction about how much cheaper and easier it was to plug-and-play with your Roku than it would have been to figure out how to set up a media center PC and hook it up to your TV.

You're probably lording this nifty little gizmo over all your friends, telling them how great it is, and how stupid they were to pass on it three weeks ago, and how they'll never have another chance to grab one at such a good price.

Or you would be, anywayif you weren't glued to the sofa watching your way through thirteen hour-long episodes of Carl Sagan's COSMOS and thirty-two installments of PETER GUNN.

Well, the joke's on you! Because if you had only waited until today, you could have bought the slightly better XR model! It's got all the features your Roku box has, plus greater range. That's what the XR stands for, see: Extended Range. (Apparently Roku's engineers learned programming in the extra time they had on their hands after dropping out of their grade school spelling bees in the first round.)

In a way, though, you could also say the joke's on your friends, because even though they've got a chance to buy today's Roku media player and pass you in this little keeping-up-with-the-Jonses home entertainment arms race you've got going on, it's still going to cost them an extra Hamilton. That XR feature don't come for free.

We admit, it's kind of a confusing situation. But there's definitely a joke, and it's definitely on one of you. As to exactly what the joke is, though, and on specifically whomwell, you'll have to work that out between yourselves. Maybe sometime when you're not preoccupied with your Ten Years of LAW & ORDER SVU Streaming Marathon.

So, like, December.

Warranty: 90 Day Roku

Condition: Refurbished

Features:

• Now features extended-range wireless (Wi-Fi N "dual-band") to stream over 50,000 movies and shows from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and more (subscriptions not included)
• Instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV using your high-speed Internet connection
• Listen to Pandora, access your music library with MP3Tunes, catch the latest ballgame and more
• Plays Standard and High-Definition video capable of playing 1080p HD video (via free upgrade later this year)
• Control the Roku with the included remote choose what you want to watch, play, fast-forward, rewind, pause, and resume play later, just like watching a DVD
• Be up and running in less than 5 minutes
• Connects directly to your broadband Internet connection wirelessly or use a wired Ethernet connection
• HDMI port to connect to your HDTV (HDMI cable not included)
• Roku is constantly expanding its library content, so there will always be something new

How it Works:

1. Plug it in The Roku player is compatible with virtually any TV
2. Add it to your home network Whether your home is wireless or wired, the helpful on-screen instructions make it a cinch
3. Start watching You can pause, fast forward, rewind, or return to where you left off anytime

Additional Photos:

• Roku N1101 HD-XR Media Player
• Back of Roku N1101 HD-XR Media Player (ports and cable jacks)
  
• Package Contents
  

Product Specifications:

• Networking: Wi-Fi (802.11N/B/G dual-band) with WEP, WPA, and WPA2 support; 10/100 Ethernet (RJ-45)
• Video Outputs: Composite video (480i), S-Video (480i), Component video (Y/Pb/Pr 720p/480p), HDMI (720p/480p)
• Video Modes: 16:9 HD (720p), 16:9 anamorphic (480p), 4:3 standard (480i)
• Audio Output: Stereo (L/R RCA), Digital Optical (Toslink Stereo/Surround), Digital over HDMI (Stereo/Surround)
• Remote Control: NEC protocol, supported by various universal remotes
• Power Input: 5V, 2.5A provided by included AC adapter
• Other: USB Port
• Power Consumption: 6 watts peak, 4 watts in standby
• Size: 5 x 5 x 1.75 inches (130 x 130 x 41 mm)
• Weight: 11 oz (300 grams)

In the box:

• (1) Roku HD-XR Media Player (Model Number: N1101)
• (1) Remote control
• (2) AAA batteries
• (1) Composite (red/white/yellow) A/V cable
• Power Adapter Cable
• (1) Getting started guide

Note: High-speed Internet connection with a speed of at least 1.2 Mbps is required to use this product. 5 Mbps is recommended for HD streaming.

TLF readers will definitely want to check out the online symposium underway over at the Concurring Opinions blog debating the thesis set forth in Jonathan Zittrain's important 2008 book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. The symposium will feature a terrific cast of thinkers, including: Steven Bellovin, Ryan Calo, Laura DeNardis, James Grimmelmann, Orin Kerr, Lawrence Lessig, Harry Lewis,Daith Mac Sthigh, Betsy Masiello, Salil Mehra, Quinn Norton, Alejandro Pisanty, Joel Reidenberg, Barbara van Schewick and me! Regular contributors to the Concurring Opinions blog, such as Frank Pasquale, are also taking part.

Faithful readers will recall that I named Zittrain's book the most important Internet policy book of 2008 and one of the most important books of the past decade. It's impact has already been enormous. But I've also been unrelenting in my criticism of the book and Zittrain's dour forecast for the future of Internet openness and digital generativity. Down below I have reproduced my contribution to the Concurring Opinions symposium, but I encourage you to hop over there to check out all the essays that are pouring in on this topic.

____________

In his opening essay in this symposium, Jonathan Zittrain ensures us that he is not exactly a pessimist. I recognize, and celebrate, he says, the fact that the digital environment of 2010 is the coolest, most interesting, most option-filled it's ever been. Terrific! I am glad to hear that because the crux of my repeated critiques of his book, The Future of the Internet, over the past two years has been focused on its unrelenting and largely unwarranted pessimism about our possible cyber-futures. Alas, his essay on these pages still displays much of that underlying techno-pessimism and begs me to ask: Will the real Jonathan Zittrain please stand up?

Regardless of whether Zittrain is more optimistic now than when he penned his book two years ago, others are seemingly taking its pessimist message to heart. Indeed, the Death of the Internet is a hot meme in the Internet policy world these days. Much as a famous 1966 cover of Time magazine asked Is God Dead? Wired magazine, the magazine for the modern digerati, proclaimed in a recent cover story that The Web is Dead. And just this past week, The Economist magazine ran a cover story fretting about The Web's New Walls, wondering how the threats to the Internet's openness can be averted. Like Zittrain's book, the primary fear expressed in both essays was that the wide-open Internet experience of the past decade is giving way to a new regime of corporate control and walled gardens.

Before addressing this concern in more detail, let's consider the origins of Zittrain's pessimism. Zittrain's Future of the Internet, as well as Tim Wu's soon-to-be-released The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, might best be understood as the second and third installments in a trilogy that began with the publication of Lawrence Lessig's seminal 1999 book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.

Lessig's book gave birth to cyberlaw and the study of Internet policy as we all know and discuss it today. More important, from my perspective, is that Code spawned a bona fide philosophical movement within those circles. Code was both a polemic against both cyber-libertarianism and Internet exceptionalism as well as a sort of call-to-arms for a new Net activist movement. The book gave this movement its central operating principle: Code and cyberspace can be bent to the will of the collective, and it often must be if we are to avoid any number of impending disasters brought on by nefarious-minded (or just plain incompetent) folks in corporate America.

It's hard to know what to label this school of thinking, and Prof. Lessig has taken offense at my calling it cyber-collectivism. But the collectivism of which I speak is a more generic type, not the hard-edged Marxist brand of collectivism of modern times. Instead, it's the belief that markets, property rights, and private decision-making about the future course of the Net must yield to supposedly more enlightened top-down actors and mechanisms. Their central rallying cry to the extent it can be boiled down to a single term is openness! Openness is almost always treated as The Good; anything that is closed (or proprietary) in nature is treated as The Bad.

My primary beef with these Openness Evangelicals is not that openness isn't a fine generic principle around which to organize cyberspace. It's that (a) Im more willing to allow evolutionary dynamism to run its course within digital markets, even if that means some closed devices and platforms remain (or even thrive); and, (b) the openness they advocate inevitably devolves into expanded government control of cyberspace.

My other problem with this movement, and Zittrain's book in particular, comes down to that dour, depressing the-Net-is-about-to-die fear that seems to fuel this worldview. The message seems to be: Enjoy the good old days of the open Internet while you can, because any minute now it will be crushed and closed-off by corporate marauders! The Openness Evangelicals want us to believe that the corporate big boys are someday very soon going to toss the proverbial master switch, suffocating Internet innovation and digital freedom, and making us all cyber-slaves within their commercialized walled gardens.

We might think of this fear as The Great Closing, or the notion that, unless radical interventions are pursued usually of a regulatory nature a Digital Dark Age of Closed Systems will soon unfold, complete with myriad AOL-like walled gardens, sterile and tethered devices, corporate censorship, and consumer gouging. Again, it's really just a restatement of the old Lessig view that Left to itself, cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control. In other words, most information systems, networks and devices will be bottled up by corporate gatekeepers if markets aren't steered in a better direction by wise philosopher-regulators.

But there are serious problems with The Great Closing thesis as set forth in the work of Lessig, Zittrain, and Wu:

1) There isn't a clear definition of open vs. closed systems, and there never will be, and supposedly closed networks or sterile devices aren't nearly as closed or sterile as critics claim. Zittrain praises the supposedly more open nature of PCs and praises the openness to innovation that Microsoft's Windows operating system offers in particular, but others have blasted Windows for years as the Great Satan of closed code. Meanwhile, Zittrain makes Steve Jobs and Apple's iPhone and iPad out to be sterile, closed appliances, but the company's App Store has offered millions of innovators the opportunity to produce almost every conceivable type of mobile application the human mind could imagine. Moreover, those Apple devices don't block completely open communications applications or interfaces, such as web browsers, email and SMS clients, or Twitter. And certainly no one is forced to spend hundreds of dollars on these Apple products. There are many alternatives. It's never been easier to create or find information or applications on multiple platforms not just via your PC as Zittrain seems to suggest.

2) There are powerful counter-incentives that discourage companies from closing their systems in ways that would negatively impact consumer welfare. Social and economic influences help ensure the scales won't be tipped completely in the closed direction. The Web is built on powerful feedback mechanisms and possesses an extraordinary level of transparency in terms of its operations. Moreover, the breaking news cycle for tech developments can be measured in milliseconds. Every boneheaded move is subjected to immediate and intense scrutiny by bloggers, tech press, pundits, gadget sites, etc. Never has the white-hot spotlight of public attention been so intense in terms of helping to shine light on corporate missteps. Reputation is perhaps the greatest asset possessed by any tech company, and they work hard to safeguard it.

3) Most evidence suggests everything is getting increasingly open all the time regardless of what any corporation might want. Most corporate attempts to bottle up information or close-off their systems end badly. The walled gardens of the past failed miserably, for example. In critiquing Zittrain's book, Ann Bartow has noted that if Zittrain is correct that CompuServe and AOL exemplify the evils of tethering, it's pretty clear the market punished those entities pretty harshly without Internet governance-style interventions. Indeed, let's not forget that AOL was the big, bad corporate boogeyman of Lessig's Code and yet, just a decade later, it has been relegated to an also-ran. (Has everyone forgotten the hysteria over AOL-Time Warner merger? Or the fear that AOL would dominate the Instant Messaging world? Someone will need to remind AOL-TW shareholders, who lost hundreds of billions on the deal, what all the fuss was about.) There are few reasons to believe that modern efforts to impose corporate control or create walled gardens will end any differently.

4) The critics greatly overstate the case regarding the supposed evils of closed systems, anyway. They fail to appreciate how there was a need/demand for some closed or sterile devices. Why shouldn't people who want a simpler or more secure digital experience have such options? Zittrain seems to fear that the devices of the hoi polloi will drive out those favored by tinker-happy tech geeks (of which I count myself a proud member). But we need not fear such foreclosure for the reasons I discuss next.

5) Innovation continues rapidly in both directions along the open vs. closed continuum. The presence of closed systems or devices on the market doesn't mean innovation has been foreclosed among more open systems or platforms. In other words, a hybrid future is both desirable and possible. We can have the best of both worlds: a world full of some closed systems or even tethered appliances, but also plenty of generativity and openness. Think iPhone vs. Android vs. Windows Mobile vs. the many other mobile operating systems. Some are more closed, others are quite open. Zittrain says Android, which is open source, is a sort of canary in the coal mine but ignores the fact that it is growing at a frantic pace, now accounting for one-quarter of mobile web traffic just three years after its inception. Not only does he ignore that fact, but Zittrain then reverts to the kill switch boogeyman and warns us that any day now Google could change its mind, close the platform, and kill an app, or the entire phone remotely. But where's the business sense in that? What's the incentive for companies to pursue such a diabolical course of action? Is Google going to start making all those millions of apps on their own which independents developers produce today? It seems unlikely and unpopular, and can you imagine the lawsuits that would fly if they did try it! Meanwhile, how many times has Apple thrown the dreaded kill switch on apps? There are tens of millions of apps in the App Store and hundreds of billions of downloads. If Steve Jobs is supposed to be the great villain of independent innovation, he seems to be doing a pretty bad job at it! Again, today's supposed walled gardens are less walled than ever before.

6) And oh, by the way the old Internet that Zittrain and others like to wax nostalgic about was never quite as open and generative as they suggest. Let's face it, the good ol' days weren't really so glorious. Seriously, were you online back in 1994? Did you enjoy Trumpet Winsock, noisy 14.4 baud modems, and narrowband dial-up? Did you like loading up multiple 5 floppy disks to get an OS running so that you could even use your machine? Yeah, me neither.

But here's the other forgotten factor: Until the Net was commercialized during that period, it had been an extremely closed system. As Geert Lovink reminds us, The first decades the Internet was a closed world, only accessible to (Western) academics and the U.S. military. In order to access the Internet one had to be an academic computer scientist or a physicist. Until the early nineties it was not possible for ordinary citizens, artists, business or activists, in the USA or elsewhere, to obtain an email address and make use of the rudimentary UNIX-based applications. [..] It was a network of networks but still a closed one. Moreover, it was only because Lessig and Zittrain's much-dreaded AOL and CompuServe came along that many folks were even able to experience and enjoy this strange new place called cyber-space. The fact that millions of Americans for the first time experienced the Internet through services like AOL (and continue to do so) is a reality that Zittrain simply overlooks, notes Lovink. Could it be that those glorious good ol' days Zittrain longs for were really due to the way closed walled gardens like AOL and CompuServe held our hands to some extent and gave many folks (not me!) a guided tour of cyberspace? Regardless, we need not revisit that ancient history. Again, those walled gardens came crumbling down.

7) Finally, there's remarkably little said about possible solutions or an acknowledgment that alternative approaches can have costs or entail significant trade-offs. At the end of the day, when you peel away all the techno-talk and worry-wart hand-wringing, what Zittrain doesn't seem to like is that some people are making choices that he doesn't approve of. To be generous, perhaps it's because he feels that they don't fully understand the supposed dangers of the choices they are making. But what, exactly, is it that Zittrain wants done, and who or what should make it happen? Remarkably, he doesn't offer many specifics in his book or in his essay. Should consumers be discouraged from purchasing iPads, video game consoles, or TiVos because they are too closed? Or should the creators of such gadgets be forced to open them up, even if it means that might discourage their development in the first place? Zittrain really never makes it clear, although he hints that once developers do open their previously closed systems a bit, they should not be allowed to close them back up. But wouldn't that discourage the developer from opening things up more in the first place? Again, no answer from him.

Regardless, to reiterate and close, my contention here and elsewhere has been: (a) that things just aren't as bad as Zittrain makes them out to be; (b) that the evolutionary open vs. closed process itself has value; and, (c) who is he to say those choices are irrational or that this spontaneous, experimental process should be interrupted? If some mere mortals choose more closed devices or platforms, then so what? It isn't the end of the world. Again, those devices or platforms aren't really as closed as he suggests in fact, they are far more open in some ways than the earlier technologies and platforms he glorifies. In sum: We can have the best of both worlds a world full of plenty of tethered appliances, but also plenty of generativity and openness. We need not make a choice between the two, and we certainly shouldn't be demanding someone else make it for us.

One final point that didn't really fit anywhere above.. Zittrain worries about The famously ungovernable Internet suddenly becom[ing] much more governable, an outcome most libertarian types would be concerned about. He's referring to a concern addressed in more detail in his book (and Lessig's Code) that the Net could become more regulable because of changes in code and architecture over time. To the extent this is a problem at all and I have my doubts for the reasons noted above this is a problem we should handle by putting more constraints on our government(s), not by imposing more regulations on code or coders. Consider privacy and data collection concerns. While, as a general principle, I think it wise for companies to minimize the amount of data they collect about consumers or websurfers, we need not, and ought not, force that by law, given the huge benefits of data collection and use for innovation and, yes, the openness if the Internet ecosystem! We should certainly hold companies to high standards when it comes to data security and breach (including by FTC enforcement). But, again, the way to deal with the regulability threat that Lessig and Zittrain raise is to tightly limit the powers of government to access private information through intermediaries in the first place.

If you're a typical wired American, you've got a bunch of tech tools you like and a bunch more you covet. You have a cell phone that can easily text. You've got a laptop configured just the way you want it. Maybe you have a Kindle for reading, or an iPad. And when the next new thing comes along, some of you will line up on the first day it's available.

So why can't work keep up? Why are you forced to use an unfamiliar, and sometimes outdated, operating system? Why do you need a second laptop, maybe an older and clunkier one? Why do you need a second cell phone with a new interface, or a BlackBerry, when your phone already does e-mail? Or a second BlackBerry tied to corporate e-mail? Why can't you use the cool stuff you already have?

More and more companies are letting you. They're giving you an allowance and allowing you to buy whatever laptop you want, and to connect into the corporate network with whatever device you choose. They're allowing you to use whatever cell phone you have, whatever portable e-mail device you have, whatever you personally need to get your job done. And the security office is freaking.

You can't blame them, really. Security is hard enough when you have control of the hardware, operating system and software. Lose control of any of those things, and the difficulty goes through the roof. How do you ensure that the employee devices are secure, and have up-to-date security patches? How do you control what goes on them? How do you deal with the tech support issues when they fail? How do you even begin to manage this logistical nightmare? Better to dig your heels in and say "no."

But security is on the losing end of this argument, and the sooner it realizes that, the better.

The meta-trend here is consumerization: cool technologies show up for the consumer market before they're available to the business market. Every corporation is under pressure from its employees to allow them to use these new technologies at work, and that pressure is only getting stronger. Younger employees simply aren't going to stand for using last year's stuff, and they're not going to carry around a second laptop. They're either going to figure out ways around the corporate security rules, or they're going to take another job with a more trendy company. Either way, senior management is going to tell security to get out of the way. It might even be the CEO, who wants to get to the company's databases from his brand new iPad, driving the change. Either way, it's going to be harder and harder to say no.

At the same time, cloud computing makes this easier. More and more, employee computing devices are nothing more than dumb terminals with a browser interface. When corporate e-mail is all webmail, corporate documents are all on GoogleDocs, and when all the specialized applications have a web interface, it's easier to allow employees to use any up-to-date browser. It's what companies are already doing with their partners, suppliers, and customers.

Also on the plus side, technology companies have woken up to this trend and -- from Microsoft and Cisco on down to the startups -- are trying to offer security solutions. Like everything else, it's a mixed bag: some of them will work and some of them won't, most of them will need careful configuration to work well, and few of them will get it right. The result is that we'll muddle through, as usual.

Security is always a tradeoff, and security decisions are often made for non-security reasons. In this case, the right decision is to sacrifice security for convenience and flexibility. Corporations want their employees to be able to work from anywhere, and they're going to have loosened control over the tools they allow in order to get it.

This essay first appeared as the second half of a point/counterpoint with Marcus Ranum in Information Security Magazine. You can read Marcus's half here.

Apple may not have invented the MP3 player, but with its iPod range it certainly defined it. Every year consumers and rivals alike wait for the company's September music event, to see what the must-have functionality and hardware is this season. SlashGear has been playing with the new fourth-generation iPod shuffle, fifth-generation iPod nano and fourth-generation iPod touch since Apple's unveil last week; check out our group review after the cut.

iPod shuffle

The shuffle was originally Apple's attempt at a budget, simplistic MP3 player, and one where they could sell the concept of a screen-free device as a bonus rather than a cost-cutting exercise. Since the gum-stick first-generation its flip-flopped in form factor between that and a boxy clip design, and with the fourth-gen shuffle we're back to a small square.

Measuring 1.14 x 1.24 x 0.34 inches, the new shuffle gains back the hardware controls its most recent predecessor did without. Apple still includes VoiceOver, their text-to-speech engine that can announce track and album names, playlists and battery status, but primary playback control is down to the clickable control pad that dominates the front of the iPod. Despite the apparent similarities, it's bigger than before 18-percent larger, Apple tells us with a center play/pause key, volume up/down on top and bottom, and skip/rewind on left and right. Up top there are two further controls, a three-position switch which powers the shuffle on and into either regular play-in-order mode or into the eponymous shuffle mode, and the VoiceOver button.

Finally there's the 3.5mm headphone socket which doubles as the data port for synchronizing with iTunes with the included USB cable and a small LED that shows battery and sync status. The whole thing measures 0.44 oz and is crafted out of anodized aluminum in one of five colors: silver, blue, green, orange and pink; on the back is the by-now traditional clip, complete with Apple logo (and where any optional engraving is positioned) to hook the iPod shuffle to your lapel, purse, bag strap or anywhere else.

As you might expect, using the iPod shuffle is pretty straightforward; general playback is handled by the buttons, while clicking the VoiceOver key once announces the currently-playing track and artist, pressing and holding lists the available playlists, and clicking twice reads out the status of the battery. Apple only offers one model with 2GB capacity so it's unlikely that the contents will ever get to the stage where managing them is too unruly with audio as the only guide.

Of course, with iTunes the shuffle is a more flexible PMP than rivals, with the software being used to set up playlists, create Genius Mixes that presence of tracks on the shuffle itself assuming can then be played while on the move, and even load new languages via the VoiceOver Kit. If you've always wanted your Italian MP3s to be announced with an authentic accent, the shuffle can do it. Finally, you can use the shuffle as a basic flash drive.

It's hard to go wrong, and Apple's lengthy battery claims up to 15hrs of solid audio playback panned out. Considering the iPod is recharged whenever you plug in to re-sync, we found we were more likely to exhaust our particular batch of tracks before we exhausted the battery. At $49, we can forgive the absence of a USB dock a neat inclusion with the second-gen shuffle though it's always worth remembering that there's an Apple premium to be paid: if you don't mind losing the fashion appeal, the sturdy casing and VoiceOver, you can find more capacious rivals some of which have LCD displays for less money.

iPod nano

The fifth-gen iPod nano has seen the biggest changes of this season's new models, ditching its predecessor's long-and-thin aesthetic for a shuffle-like squareness. While it may look like the shuffle with a screen, it's actually significantly larger: 1.48 x 1.61 x 0.35 inches and 0.74 oz. That allows for a 1.54-inch 240 x 240 multitouch-capable color display to be included on the front, as well as a standard Dock Connector on the bottom. At the back is a spring-loaded clip, again with the Apple logo and space for engraving, while the only hardware controls run across the flat top edge: volume up and down, and the sleep/wake stud. On the underside, next to the Dock Connector, is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apple is known for their iOS software as found on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and unsurprisingly they've borrowed the UI theme for the new iPod nano. That's not to say it's actually iOS running on the PMP: there's no App Store or on-device iTunes downloads, for instance. Still, it makes for a straightforward usage model for anybody familiar with the company's other mobile devices. Neat touches include swiping left to show the full artist, track or album name if it's too long to be shown all in one go, and large letters superimposed on the display as you finger-scroll through a long list.

The compact display shows four icons at a time, with four different screens that can be swiped through; as usual, pips at the bottom of the screen show which pane you're looking at. Time, playback status and battery status run across the top, though there's a full-screen clock app with stopwatch and timer but no alarm. You can also set the iPod to briefly show the analog clock when you initially hit tap the wake button.

By default, the first screen shows Playlists, Now Playing, Artists and Genius Mixes (generated by iTunes and synchronized across) while the second screen has Radio, Podcasts, Photos and Settings. Drilling down into more specific tracks is handled by the third pane, which has Songs, Albums, Genres and Composers, while the last screen offers Fitness and Clock. Tapping and holding on any one of the icons eventually sets them jiggling, as on the iPhone's homescreen, and you can then drag them around to reorder the panes according to your own preferences.

You might have noticed that video is conspicuous by its absence, and that's because Apple has made some feature sacrifices in order to slim the nano down to its compact dimensions. Gone is the fourth-gen nano's video playback and camera; now, if you want to shoot photos or video with your new iPod, you'll need a fourth-gen iPod touch. To be fair, the smaller display of this new nano doesn't especially lend itself to video content: it would be too small to enjoy even a TV episode, never mind a feature-length movie. The average YouTube clip might be more manageable, but then Apple would have to add in WiFi, pushing up price and bulk.

We were never entirely convinced by shooting video with our nano; doing so with a cameraphone always seems more useful, what with their ability to instantly upload the footage for sharing. This audio-centric focus has given Apple the room to better explore the music experience, too. Cover art looks great full-screen there's a rudimentary photo viewer as well, which eschews multitouch pinch-zoom for a simpler double-tap-to-zoom system and swipe navigation and the addition of VoiceOver from the iPod shuffle means you needn't retrieve the nano from wherever you've clipped it in order to check the currently playing track.

Navigation takes a little getting used to, especially since there's no home button: instead you press and hold at a point in-between any onscreen controls. It's certainly possible to cradle the nano in the fingers and thumb away at the touchscreen, though we had better results doing things two-handed. An accelerometer not only flips the display orientation useful if you've clipped it on upside down but also allows you to shake-to-shuffle for randomized playback. The various EQ settings, audio crossfading, volume limits and other settings have been carried over from the previous model, as has the TV-output support (with the appropriate adapter, and of course you can't play video).

Integrated is a pedometer for simply counting steps together with a Nike+ receiver for the more ambitious exerciser. As before, Nike+ automatically tracks your workout routing, announces feedback over the top of your playlists, and then lets you sync the results to an account at nikeplus.com. If you replace the standard iPod headphones and you probably should with a set that includes a microphone, you can record voice notes, plus there's an FM radio with Live Pause for pausing or rewinding up to 15 minutes of the broadcast (though not save that clip and turn it into an MP3).

Audio quality is as good as the content you provide the nano with: high-bitrate files obviously sound better than their lower-bitrate counterparts. A bigger difference can be had by swapping out the headphones for an aftermarket set, though thanks to the Dock Connector you can drop the iPod nano into your existing speaker-dock and play back music that way. Two versions are available with 8GB ($149) or 16GB ($179) of flash memory while Apple suggests up to 24hrs of audio playback from a full charge. That presumes the display is switched off; if you're browsing cover art or flicking through photos, you'll see less.

iPod touch

The gap between the iPod touch and the iPhone continues to decrease, with this fourth-gen version of the Apple PMP gaining the headline functionality of its fourth-gen cellular sibling. Amazingly it's even thinner than the waifish model it replaces, down to just 0.28-inches and 3.56 oz, still with a premium-feel stainless steel back plate and black glass fascia. Controls are as before, a home button under the display, sleep/wake on top and volume on the left hand side; the Dock Connector and 3.5mm headphone socket are on the bottom.

Most eye-catching is the 3.5-inch Retina Display, carried over from the iPhone 4 and just as impressive on the new iPod touch. At 960 x 640 resolution totaling a luxurious 326 pixels per inch it's everything Apple's hyperbole could say about it. Color-rich, with fonts as smooth as print and bags of contrast, it's tough not to fall in love at first glance. Multitouch support is obviously present, as is WiFi b/g/n (802.11n using the 2.4GHz band only) and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR: no GPS, though the touch can triangulate position using known WiFi networks nearby. Finally, gamers should be excited by the new three-axis gyroscope, which offers vastly more accurate positioning information.

Once you've gotten past the Retina Display, you might notice the small lens peering out from where an iPhone 4s earpiece would be. The new iPod touch gets two cameras: one, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime calls, and a higher-resolution camera on the back capable of 720p 30fps video recording or 960 x 720 stills. The FaceTime support is something that's been rumored since the service was first announced: offering, as you'd expect, not only touch-to-touch video calls but touch-to-iPhone 4 calls, it opens up Apple's system to a segment unwilling or unable to sign up for a cellular contract, yet who want to get in on the fun. Initiating FaceTime calls remains straightforward, tapping the contact and then flicking between the two camera views when connected by touching the display.

iPod touch FaceTime hands-on:

That familiarity is because the iPod touch runs iOS 4.1, just like the iPhone 4. Apple's iOS platform has matured nicely, with multitasking, background audio support and plenty more, and of course there's the capacious App Store with its hundreds of thousands of free and paid applications. One of the most anticipated elements of iOS 4.1 is Game Center, Apple's social gaming system that can automatically pair players according to their ability. Unfortunately Game Center wasn't live during our review period, so we'll revisit it and cover it separately later.

The multimedia experience on the new iPod touch is much as you'd expect from the iPhone 4. Apple's cover art enriched UI has become a benchmark for usability among PMPs, and with storage up to 64GB (8GB and 32GB versions are also available) there's no shortage of space for content. Video looks incredible on the Retina Display, while audio performance is also strong; we'd recommend picking up a replacement set of headphones to make the most of it.

Apple integrate their new Ping social networking client into the iTunes app on the iPod touch, allowing you to follow friends and artists, track popular songs and videos, leave comments and talk about content you've just bought. It integrates with iTunes 10 on the desktop, and is a reasonably slick way to find out what new music friends are discovering or re-discovering.

The iPod touch's dual cameras can each be used for video or still recording, unlike the video-only camera on the previous generation iPod nano. As with the iPhone, the rear camera is capable of shooting 720p HD video clips (you can also tap to flick to the front-facing camera, though the quality is only VGA resolution). Video is certainly the iPod touch's primary strength; if you want an Apple mobile device for still photography, then you should opt for the 5-megapixel iPhone 4 since the touch tops out at 960 x 720.

Apple quote up to 40hrs audio or 7hrs video from a fully-charged iPod touch, though what with the PMP's inherent flexibility don't forget there's a browser, email app, Google Maps and FaceTime on there too, and that's before you start wading through the App Store it's unlikely you'll be doing any one thing solidly. Still, we found we were comfortably able to get through a couple of days very heavy use, with a mixture of audio and video playback, browsing, some FaceTime calls and third-party applications. Considering the 7.2mm thickness that's highly impressive stuff.

Summary

It's clear with the 2010 iPod range that Apple has gone back to basics with their media players. Music is at the core of the iPod line-up, whether you're looking to simply carry a few albums' worth of tunes on a commute or at the gym, have a bigger audio collection, or prefer the flexibility and thanks to the App Store nigh on limitless potential of third-party software. Plus, it's all wrapped in Apple's iTunes ecosystem.

The iPod shuffle is a solid bedrock for that ecosystem: yes, there are MP3 players cheaper, but they don't have the same integration with iTunes and the iTunes store that the shuffle offers. At $49 there's a premium to pay for the Apple brand, but you're also getting superlative build quality, the convenience of VoiceOver and surprisingly lengthy battery life.

As for the iPod nano, that's the most changed of the three new models, and while the omission of video playback and the camera may disappoint some, overall it's a significant step on from the previous generations. Apple's iOS UI even without iOS actually behind it is a far more intuitive and effective way of interacting with the nano than the click-wheel before it, and that's before you even get to the gear-lust feel of the hardware itself. The iPod nano is incredibly tactile, well built and a suitable step up from the shuffle; the exercise-friendly pedometer, FM radio and Nike+ integration are icing on the cake.

Finally, the iPod touch, and if ever there was a device to overshadow the iPhone 4, this is it. It's tough to imagine Apple being able to shave anything more from the touch, and a brief hands-on with the PMP is enough to convince most that the Apple premium is worth it. $229 for the 8GB model is a step up from the iPod nano, true, but you're getting a whole lot more potential for your money. Apple's new $0.99 TV shows come into their own on the 3.5-inch Retina Display, which is perfectly proportioned for making the most of commutes, lunch hours or time in-between lectures, or of course there's the A4 processor to drive high-resolution games from the App Store.

That's three tiers each varied by consumer needs, and each with music at its core. As a line-up, it feels more structured than previous generations, and certainly truer to the original iPod premise. Yes, there are cheaper ways to make your music mobile, but Apple's range continues to be the most rounded in terms of hardware, software and content support. In the iPod nano, Cupertino has created a little gem with the usability of larger devices but at a new level of affordability, while the iPod touch has bridged the gap between PMP and smartphone even more. The tough part is choosing between them.

iPod touch, nano and shuffle hands-on video:

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Rumor New video-capable iPod nano on the way
• Apple iPod Touch 4th Gen Could See New Flat Back, iPod Nano Getting a Touchscreen
• Apple iPod nano 4G: Unboxing Video
• Rumor iPod Touch on the way
• iPod shuffle 4th-Gen hands-on

Shared by Mariela
"Which, at one point, led to a study showing that LSD produces no more hallucinations than a placebo." hahahhah

Continue reading Swiss researchers show off brain-controlled, AI-augmented wheelchair

Swiss researchers show off brain-controlled, AI-augmented wheelchair originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent yes' or no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that's what I wanted.

After all these years, it's great to hear the rational behind the symbols on the seminal controller. Triangle, Circle and X make sense (though I'm with management on the color choice for the last two).

I find Square = piece of paper to be an interesting relic of a tool that was designed before digital became the norm and we still had to hold on to analog metaphors.

[Read more]

Apple's recent media event solidified what we all knew was coming: Rentals and non-local storage is the future of our digital content. Ask any teenager if they'd rather watch TV or YouTube and they'll answer Google's on-demand free service full of people doing stuff on video is their preferred entertainment. Give that teen an iPhone or iPad and YouTube is where they'll go first. It's appealing to have content that's not stored locally streamed instantly and Apple/Google aren't the only companies leading this initiative.

Right now, most of the content you own is stored locally on our Macs or iOS devices. This content includes apps, books, videos, music and documents. The cutting edge techies have embraced Gmail, Google Docs and cloud services like DropBox and Box.net. The only thing keeping you from storing movies in the cloud and viewing those on your iPad is Internet speed. What if I told you the copy of Finding Nemo you bought from iTunes can be streamed instantly to any Apple device no matter where you were in the world a caf, driving down the interstate or in the London tube? It's almost here.

Our future is wireless at speeds that meet what we have in our homes. This may be a decade away and if carriers make wireless data truly unlimited this will be a reality, but it scares me for a few very obvious reasons that simply can't be fixed by technology.

Corporate Control of Our Data

Control by a single entity is my main fear. Cloud storage isn't democratized and it isn't open. Currently, when you buy something, it's stored, owned and managed by the company you purchased it from. Apple has maintained DRM in its iTunes Store since 2003. I've authorized files that I bought the day Apple's store opened and they still play on any one of my Apple devices. If I lose that song, Apple can allow me to re-download it after some back and forth with its support team. My apps, movies, music and music videos are locked to its devices. The same goes with Amazon's Kindle platform. Buying a book from Amazon's Kindle Store means that file is locked to its software and hardware. If it ever abandons Kindle, your books are useless. There's no reason for either of these companies to do this, but people who bought music from stores that are now defunct are in a bit of a pickle with the content.

An example of a failed system is Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM. A number of music stores and MP3 players adopted this, but most of those stores and hardware companies have shifted directions or gone out of business. The hundreds you spent on music may be playable right now but no one can guarantee you'll be able to in 10 years.

Let's simply alter my argument a bit and change the delivery of this content from DRMed files stored on your hard drive to music stored on the cloud operated by Napster or Real's Rhapsody Store. If those services go away, the music you own is no longer playableever. Going all in on a service that is cloud based is risky business. The same goes for content stored on Google Docs, Flickr, MobileMe and YouTube. If you're not keeping hard copies of your content uploaded to these services, you're a fool. Hard drives are cheap. Store your content and don't rely on these web services that have been around for less than a few years to store your content forever. Personally, I use Backupify.com to keep secondary backups of all my data from Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and WordPress. I download copies from Backupify once a month to my hard drive.

Remember when Amazon ironically pulled copies of 1984 from Kindle devices without warning? Cloud based companies can do this. They might give you a warning but no one can come into your house and take a book. Unless what you're storing is illegal or your hard drives are compromised, the data in your home and on your computer is safe for years as long as you're careful. Keeping a backup of your computers on an external drive at home and a duplicate at your office is good enough and I suggest anyone do that no matter how insignificant the data is. If you store photos, music and documents on your computer, back it up off-site no exceptions.

Apple is playing it safe with its new Apple TV. Allowing us to stream rented movies and TV shows is a good way to get us comfortable with streaming content. You can still buy the same content on your iOS and Mac devices and stream those to the Apple TV but, if you're on a TV browsing iTunes, the only option is to rent the content.

It won't be like this forever. Soon, streaming will be offered as a more convenient and less expensive option for us. Apple and other companies will present products where you can hit play on anything you've ever purchased and it starts instantly as long as you have an Internet connection from your phone, tablet and computer. Invite a friend to borrow your copy of Braveheart and they can watch it as well. This convenience will not be without problems.

In Apple We Trust

Apple is on top right now. Its mobile devices are envied by every CE company, but this won't be the reality forever. I own 300 iOS apps, 1,200 movies, 200 music videos and over 18,000 songs where over 5,000 of those songs were purchased in iTunes. I've invested thousands of dollars in Apple. Thanks to limited kindness of the music industry, my music is now DRM free in iTunes Plus format so it can be played on any other MP3 player, but the other content is stuck. When Apple's devices aren't the best and someone else takes over, I'll be stuck to the Apple ecosystem. The same can be said for Mac software when you make the switch to Windows 7 (for whatever reason) but it's a reality we all need to deal with.

When you want to switch to a cooler and better mobile platform, will you be okay with giving up the thousands spent on DRMed content that can't be played on the new device? If Apple remains the dominant leader for the next 20 years, can we trust it to be kind to its loyal fans who trust when we buy a movie stored exclusively on Apple's cloud to always be playable and never be pulled, removed or changed? Will my copy of Braveheart always work no matter where I am or will I be greeted with an error when I'm in China with, this movie is not licensed to be played in your region. Where the hard copy stored on my iPad would play just fine no matter where I was? We'll see. Apple is not a movie studio so its hands are tied when it comes to content and how that content plays just as much as any other company when it comes to music and movies.

The White Album Argument

Maybe I'm not seeing the big picture. There's another side to this where if you ask anyone over the age of 50 how many times they've bought The Beatles' White Album and they won't be able to keep count. There was record, 8-track, tape, cassette and maybe even mini-disk. They probably also bought it in CD form the first, second and third time it was remastered. You may have bought this album eight times since it was first available in record stores.

Perhaps that's how it's going to be when it comes to our digital music. Perhaps, you'll buy the same content over and over again well into your old age because there would have been a few music services between 2000 and 2050. On my 70th birthday, I may lament to my grandkids that I spent thousands on music in iTunes and they'll laugh because music is like $20 a song now and I shouldn't be complaining that it cost 99 cents back then.

Planning for the Future

Whatever happens next, consumers are in control. We decide with our cold hard cash. We already voted that digital is the future since iTunes sales will pass the sales of physical CDs very soon, but if we go all-in on cloud content trusting in the corporations storing and delivering it, the world may shift immensely and when you take a vacation to the mountains with your family where there's limited cell reception, the music, movies and important work documents will all be inaccessible stored in some server that's unreachable and you'll have to laugh because this was the future we all wanted that corporations gave us.

Maybe I'm skeptical, but the best content is physical (bookshelf) with a digital version (non-DRM) and a backup of that digital copy off-site. If your house burns down, you'll still have the book or CD digitally but the world we're entering into is all digital with single corporations holding the DRM keys and now they want to store the content as well. It's unclear what's going to happen next. Let's hope we know what we're doing.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: How to Manage Access to Digital Content