technology Archives - Page 5 of 7

The Engadget Interview: Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku

For this week’s Engadget Inteview, veteran journalist J.D. Lasica spent a few minutes with Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, to discuss digital media, digital music, DRM wackiness and Mona Lisa smiles. For readers who aren’t familiar with Roku, what are you guys about? We’ve been around since October 2002 and we’re based in Palo Alto, Calif. Our focus is building digital media players for home. Our core expertise is to produce great-looking products and great user interfaces. Such as? Our product line includes the Roku SoundBridge and the HD1000. We tell people, wouldn’t you love to see a slide show of your family pictures in full-quality digital on your flat-panel TV in your living room? That resonates. And

The Engadget Interview: Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger, Inc.

Last week we kicked off The Engadget Interview with outgoing MPAA president Jack Valenti. This week journalist J.D. Lasica tries out the Sidekick II and speaks with Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Danger, Inc., about the device’s upcoming release, the market for wireless handhelds, the cachet of having Derek Jeter and Paris Hilton as Sidekick fans, and whether, if forced to at gunpoint, he’d buy a Blackberry or a Treo. Give me the 30-second lowdown on Danger. You started back in 2000? That’s right. We’re a 3 ½-year-old private company in Palo Alto, Calif., backed by such big venture capital firms as Redpoint, Mobius and Softbank. Most of our 140 employees are in Palo Alto, California, though a handful are in

Supernova and the decentralized future

Blogging, collaborative work tools and the drawbacks of social software took center stage at this year’s Supernova. The third annual tech-in-the-workspace conference — “Where the decentralized future comes together!” — drew more than 150 technology thought leaders, software startup CEOs and other heavy hitters (alas, fewer than 20 of them women) to the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara, Calif., on June 24-25, 2004. “Decentralization continues to be an explosive force in tech-driven industries,” said Supernova organizer Kevin Werbach, who has just accepted a faculty position at Penn’s Wharton School. “Intelligence is moving out to the edges, with powerful connected devices empowering users. Challenges such as voice-over-IP and peer-to-peer networks pose both threats and opportunities to established industries.”

Broadcast flag: A lockbox for digital radio

The Recording Industry Association of America has discovered that digital radio broadcasts can be copied and redistributed over the Internet. The horror. And so the RIAA, the music business’s trade and lobbying group, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to step in and impose an “audio broadcast flag” on certain forms of digital radio. On April 15, the FCC bowed to the RIAA’s request and initiated a notice of inquiry, typically a step leading to formal rule-making. The public may submit comments to the FCC between June 16 and July 16.

Online shopping: Who deserves your trust?

This column appeared in the March 5, 1999, issue of the Industry Standard. Here’s the version that appeared in the Industry Standard. When it comes to shopping online, who deserves your trust? The big guys, certainly: Amazon, CDnow. But what about small outfits you’ve never dealt with? How do you know whether you’re dealing with a reputable Web merchant or a fly-by-night operator? And if they are legitimate, are they also reliable? Users seeking to size up an online merchant can go about it in different ways: independent research; queries to a Usenet newsgroup; relying on a seal of approval by a private watchdog group; or visiting an independent Web site that monitors e-commerce retailers.

Protecting the privacy of Internet users

Smart ads are a worthy tool — if safeguards are built in This column appeared in the April 1999 issue of The American Journalism Review. The worst-kept secret of online advertising is this: Nobody clicks on banner ads. And that’s bad news for a Web publication’s bottom line. At least one online newspaper is taking steps to turn that around through a technique called targeted advertising — essentially, tailoring ads right down to the individual user. It’s a gambit worth exploring, as other Internet companies have done. But online publishers considering such a move should not minimize the importance of posting clear policies to reassure users worried about their privacy rights.

Ratings for news sites?

The Clinton administration & Internet industry are championing voluntary ratings for Web sites This in-depth look at the controversy over PICS labels appeared in the October 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. When President Clinton challenged the high-tech industry this summer to create a “family-friendly Internet” by cleaning up cyber-smut and other offensive content, newspaper editorials applauded the president’s decision to forgo government regulation and let private industry police the Net. Few realized that the White House’s “parental empowerment intitiative” would plunge online news publications headlong into the thorniest thicket of free-speech issues in the history of cyberspace — and lead to the news media’s rejection of the president’s proposal when it comes to their own Web sites.

Censorship devices on the Internet

Unbeknown to the public, filtering programs block out much more than pornography This column appeared in the September 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. When the Supreme Court struck down the pernicious Communications Decency Act this summer, the online community roundly celebrated the victory as a milestone for free speech in cyberspace. Well, it’s time to put down the champagne glasses. Two new threats — nearly as insidious as the CDA — now loom over freedom of speech on the Net: censorware and Internet ratings. “We’re seeing a move toward the privatizing of censorship,” warns David Sobel, legal counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. “It’s likely to destroy the Internet as it’s existed until now.”

The Censor Police: Inside the push for Web ratings

RATINGS TODAY, CENSORSHIP TOMORROW The Internet industry is rushing to embrace ratings systems for the Web. The technology will help parents keep their kids away from porn. It can also help anyone censor anything. The following article appeared on Salon.com on July 31, 1997. Afew years from now, when we look back at what crippled the Internet as a global forum for the free exchange of information, at least we’ll know it was done with the best of intentions. Who, after all, could oppose Internet ratings if they create a “family-friendly” online world? And so, to make the Net safer for kids and to avert government regulation, the Internet brain trust has banded together to push rating, filtering and labeling

Nicholas Negroponte: The revolution will be digitized

In which the Guru of the Digital Generation discourses on McLuhan, electronic neighbors and square dancing Nicholas Negroponte, 51, founding director of the Media Lab at MIT and Wired magazine’s popular columnist from its inception, is one of the leading lights of the digital revolution. His 1995 book, “Being Digital,” looks at the implications of the new technologies for global communication, interpersonal relationships, censorship, and our very notions of reality. This transformative technology will fundamentally alter how we learn, how we work, how we entertain ourselves — essentially how we live. J.D. Lasica caught up with Negroponte via modem on March 21, 1995, during the author’s world book tour.