Berkman Buzz: Week of June 7, 2010

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations
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What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below.

* Ethan Zuckerman’s algorithmic World Cup.
* OpenNet Initiative on Internet connectivity in Cuba.
* Christian Sandvig addresses a certain addressing system.
* David Weinberger surveys the surveyors on cloud computing.
* CMLP evaluates a kerfuffle-rrifc DMCA notice from the NYT.
* Andrew McAfee stands up for the iPad and App Store.
* danah boyd discusses the failures of COPPA.
* Herdict on new Internet controls in Vietnam.
* Doc Searls updates his clues for newspapers adapting to the Net.
* Weekly Global Voices: "Japan: Threatened theaters decline to screen 'The Cove'"

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The full buzz.

"The 2010 FIFA World Cup starts on Friday, which means that football fans across the world have a difficult task this week: determining who to support. At first glance, this doesn’t seem to be a difficult task – contrarians aside, we support our national sides. But that’s not much help if your nation didn’t qualify… unless, like Ireland, you didn’t qualify in a way that gives you a team to root against throughout the tournament. And even if you have ties to one or more nations who’ll be competing, there are dozens of qualifying matches where you’ve got no direct rooting interest. Assuming you’re neither South African or Mexican, who do you pull for in the opener Friday afternoon?"
From Ethan Zuckerman's blog post Who to support? Algorithms for World Cup 2010

"Telecommunications workers began sounding tests along Cuba’s southeastern coastline last week, marking the first phase of plans to lay a submarine fiber optic cable connecting Venezuela, Cuba, and Jamaica. If successful, Cuban news site Cubadebate reports that the cable’s 640 gigabytes would increase Cuba’s connectivity capacity 3000-fold. Last week, the Chinese ship Ridley Thomas, belonging to the Chinese contractor Cantel Shangai Bell arrived at Siboney beach in the eastern city of Santiago to begin testing. Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe, the Cuban-Venezuelan telecommunications firm supported chiefly by ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los pueblos de Nuestra América) will lay the 1,630 km cable when tests are complete, and officials say that Cubans should expect to see marked changed in Internet accessibility and speed by spring of 2011."
From Ellery Biddle’s blog post for ONI, Cuba and Venezuela connect through socialism, fiber optic cable

"Mexico joined the numbering plan later and for their trouble they were given 905 for Mexico City, the slowest area code then in service (2.4 seconds), slower than everything given in the US and Canada at that time, despite a very large population density. This just proves the adage: The poor have the worst addresses. Maybe this rough treatment is what caused them to leave the North American numbering system in disgust in 1991, even though Mexico has not left North America as far as I know."
From Christian Sandvig’s blog post, The Slowest Dial is Mexico City

"Pew Internet surveyed a bunch o’ experts about where will be in The Cloud in 2020. The survey was more intended to elicit verbal responsesthan to come up with reliable numbers, but overall the experts seem to agree that we’ll be computing with a hybrid of desktop and cloud services. That seems a safe bet, especially since given enough bandwidth, all services are local. (Hasn’t distance always been the time it takes to connect?) Several of the experts push back against the term “cloud,” Gary Bachula because it’s a “bad metaphor for broadening understanding of the concept,” and Susan Crawford because its ubiquity will mean that we “won’t need a word for it.”"
From David Weinberger's blog post Pew surveys Experts on the future of cloud computing

"The Interwebs are up in arms, again. This time, the kerfuffle is over a DMCA notice, submitted by The New York Times Co., that caused the removal of the Pulse RSS reader from the Apple Apps Store. The timing almost seemed designed to bring out the pitchfork-wielding hordes: Mere hours after the Pulse iPad application was highlighted by Steve Jobs during his keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the app was pulled from the App Store in response to a DMCA claim submitted by The New York Times Co. So what's the issue with the app? Not surprisingly, the Times' DMCA notice is about as clear as mud."
From Kimberley Isbell’s blog post for CMLP, Is the New York Times Really Claiming That All Paid RSS Readers Infringe its Copyright?

"I got an iPad as a birthday present a little while back (thanks again, Mom!), and am loving it. So when I heard that Cory Doctorow, the science fiction author and editor of geek candy blog Boing Boing, was not enamored of the device I was eager to learn why. I checked out his post expecting to read a review, but instead found a diatribe. And one that cries out for a response. “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either)” is Doctorow’s accurate and self-explanatory title. He concedes that the iPad’s design reflects “a lot of thoughtfulness and smarts,” but is still not going anywhere near one and wants everyone else to stay away, too. In other words, he likes the device just fine; he just hates what it stands for. Like property rights and the clearly expressed desires and preferences of millions of people."
From Andrew McAfee’s blog post My iPad? A Great Bundle of Sticks

"Ever wonder why youth have to be over 13 to create an account on Facebook or Gmail or Skype? It has nothing to do with safety. In 1998, the U.S. Congress enacted the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with the best of intentions. They wanted to make certain that corporations could not collect or sell data about children under the age of 13 without parental permission, so they created a requirement to check age and get parental permission for those under 13. Most companies took one look at COPPA and decided that the process of getting parental consent was far too onerous so they simply required all participants to be at least 13 years of age."
From danah boyd’s blog post on DMLcentral, How COPPA Fails Parents, Educators, Youth

"Internet censorship is nothing new to Vietnam, yet its policies have remained very much out of the public spotlight in other parts of the world. The Communist government of Vietnam has taken many opaque technological and regulatory steps to control its citizens’ access to Internet content. With an above average Internet penetration rate of 25.7%, and a relatively high literacy rate for the adult population, the Internet would be potentially poised to allow substantial free expression that may oppose the government regime. With that fear in mind, the government has increasingly cracked down on what it considers improper Internet communication and behavior, and a new regulation, enacted in April of this year, only added a new facet to their expanding iron grip of control."
From Alex Fayette's blog post for Herdict, Vietnam’s New Green Dam?

"Amidst the protests of right-wing groups that opposed to the screening of the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove”, three theaters decided not to show it. The controversial movie which records the slaughter of dolphins in the inlet of Taiji, a small village on the Southern Coast of Japan and historically dependent on whaling, was set to be screened in Japanese cinemas at the end of June. But, after threatening calls and protests in front of the distribution company, two cinemas in Tokyo and one in Osaka declined to screen it. Another twenty three will still screen it, but on a yet to be defined date."
From Scilla Alecci’s blog post for Global Voices, Japan: Threatened theaters decline to screen "The Cove"

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The Berkman Buzz is selected weekly from the blog posts of Berkman Center directors, fellows, projects: http://cyber.harvard.edu/planet/current/

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