This week Google demoed their new Chrome OS, an operating system based on its web browser. The concept behind the entire venture plays with the idea of putting a user’s entire digital life in the cloud. (Read all about it…)
While this went on, a US based law firm was mulling over a class-action suit by Xbox Live users who had been locked out of Microsoft’s service. Their access to the Xbox Live cloud was barred over charges that they (the users) had modded their consoles. (Read all about it…)
This new stage in tech interests me. The entire computer age that budded in the 70s and 80s, and took flight in the 90s, came about because of guys who liked to meddle and mod. Now we’ve reached an era when the gargantuan companies founded by these same meddlers and modders seek to ban innovative experimentation.
There’s a point I’d like to make here, that won’t be the main point of this entry but…
Heading down to your hardware store won’t cut it for today’s tinkerers. The sophistication and intricacy of today’s tech is such that the present day innovator and inventor often starts by playing with finished products. Penalizing those modders and meddlers stifles innovation. And for patent laws to be used as the pillow is ironic, as those laws were designed to encourage growth in that area.
Moving on…
This idea that access to the cloud could be denied as penance, coupled with Google’s push to get all our data up onto that proverbial mass, certainly gave cause for pause this week.
With your right to privacy being something Google doesn’t believe in (read) and with Britain and France passing laws that allow entertainment companies to have at your Internet connection – you have to ask yourself, do I really wanna give up my hard drive? At least you’ll have some videos saved to keep you entertained when you’re in the dark.
I have a friend, living in London, who, a few years ago, became determined to collect classic books. He’s not the kind of guy you’d think would dig through Foyles for an old copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, in fact he’s the kind of guy who, you’d assume, had found a way to hack the Kindle and bring it across the pond. When I asked him why the sudden urge to horde old volumes, he said it was because he heard libraries in Britain were contemplating going digital.
He outlined his theory, which sounded something akin to the last chapter of Orwell’s Animal Farm. “Digital copies can be changed.” Any blogger knows even a post that’s been up for three days can be tweaked, if you suddenly spot a typo. So what happens when Common Sense and wealth only exist in that fluid state?
Copies seem to be getting softer. From the hard page, to bytes on a disk, and now a cloud? I look at my BluRays downloading software updates and wonder what’s being put in or taken out.
The idea of freedom and fluidity in media, in theory, has a certain appeal. But in many of the ways that said fluidity could benefit society, laws are being written and policies structured to hamper growth. What happens when we’re renting our content? Are we comfortable with our digital lives turning into a form of economic exploitation?
Think about the idea of working so that you can afford to keep your music collection. Think about the idea of working to preserve your family photos. Working to afford the storage spaces and subscriptions that keep your digital possessions alive.
Innovation, creativity and experimentation will have to be licensed. And it’s a painful irony but, in that fluid media, wealth will not be mobile.
Depressing I know, so I’ll stop there, and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.