Tag: Techno utopians
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The Great Circular Awards Ceremony
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Andrew Orlowski
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Is there a more incestuous and self-congratulatory scene anywhere outside the fashion business? What a strange world it is, the world of “digital rights” activism. Campaigners pause only to pat each other on the back. Last week, anti-copyright campaigners Public Knowledge revealed their annual award winners. The group’s president Gigi B Sohn proudly announced the…
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One Laptop Per Child: it’s a con, says former exec
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Andrew Orlowski
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The former security director of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit has blasted the project for losing sight of its goals, accusing chairman Nicholas Negroponte of deceiving the public. It’s all about shipping kit, says Ivan Krstić in an incendiary essay.
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Futurist’s music widget goes titsup 2.0
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Andrew Orlowski
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Music’s best-known “futurist” has admitted his latest business idea has flopped and the service will close. Gerd Leonard of “Music 2.0” fame, who popularised the phrase “music flows like water”, has discovered that on the internet, revenue flows like set cement. His company Sonific, which allows bloggers to embed a widget that plays music, will…
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Teachers: Feel my Truthiness – Jimbo
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Andrew Orlowski
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Yes, it’s that time of year when children eagerly gather round a kindly old man with a beard. He makes great promises to them, if only they just work hard enough. But they just get a load of obscenities back. Only it’s not Santa. Wikipedia’s Maximum Leader and peripatetic salesman Jimmy Wales breezed into London…
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How Web 2.0 concentrates power, and makes Microsoft stronger
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Andrew Orlowski
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One IT Manager, bemoaning his lot to me, recently compared the rise of Web 2.0 enthusiasts to the problem the Police has with Freemasons. The blog and wiki evangelists within are not as secretive, of course, but they’re equally cult-like: speaking their own language, and using the populist rhetoric of “empowerment” for relentless self-advancement. He…
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Google’s founders are less humble (and jetless) than you think
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Andrew Orlowski
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Casting around for an example of the simple life to use in an Arab-bashing column, veteran columnist and editor Alexander Chancellor alighted on what he must have thought was the perfect foil to the free-spending Saudis. It appeared right there in front of him, on his PC, nestling between some coloured balls. Unlike Prince Alwaleed…