innovation

Is everything old new again? Learning from the history of technology

By in the Spring of 2012

Tim Wu argues that com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies fol­low “the Cycle,” begin­ning as open sys­tems, only to be closed by cor­po­rate moguls – and then re-opening again as the Cycle starts anew after a new inno­va­tion emerges. Decherney, Ensmenger, and Yoo do not com­pletely reject Wu’s the­sis, but they do argue that Wu’s focus on indi­vid­ual actors neglects the com­plex­i­ties of other mar­ket play­ers (adver­tis­ers, for exam­ple), gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and other sup­ply– and demand-side actors.

On “The Role of Technology in Human Affairs”

By in the Spring of 2011

In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler discusses his vision of the role of technology in historical change. He rejects an overly deterministic vision of technology (which he connects with Lewis Mumford and Marshall McLuhan), but also rejects a view of technology as immaterial to a society’s direction.

Modern media centers: the hard 20% is socio-legal

By in the Spring of 2009

Cory Doctorow points out that the first 80% of creating a media center is easy: a decent computer (I used an old Pentium III and an old PowerBook, but you can use newer tech if you’re not a poor student), video out (S-Video to an old-school TV, VGA or HDMI to a new HDTV), big hard drives, maybe network sharing (I used an Airport Extreme I inherited) so you can access media from multiple rooms. But what about content — “the other 20 percent”?