Writings on technology and society from Wellington, New Zealand
Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about the deranged world of software patents, where someone can claim that an idea they had five years ago suddenly means that entire industry owes them a fortune. I’ll be on after the 11am news.
Read on for my speaking notes, or after the broadcast you’ll be able to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)
Today on Radio New Zealand Natonal after the 11am news I talked about the why and the how of setting government information free so that we can all benefit. There’s been a lot of work done on this in many countries, including New Zealand, and some useful things are starting to happen. In a few weeks time a bunch of folk in New Zealand are giving up their weekend to attend the first ever New Zealand Open Government Data Barcamp and Hackfest.
You can read on for my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)
…especially about the future. This week on Radio New Zealand National I’ll be talking about old technology predictions that didn’t turn out so well, and making a few of my own.
I’ll be on after the 11am news tomorrow, Thursday 23rd July. You can read on for some of my speaking notes, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)
I’m just about to leave Atiu, an island in the Cook Islands. I’ve had a fantastic few days here, and I’ve also had an insight into life in a small isolated community in the Pacific.
Atiu has less than 500 permanent inhabitants, plus at the moment 12 vistors. Put another way, visiting with my immediate family has increased the number of people on the island by a percentage point.
The people are very welcoming. I’m staying at the Atiu Villas, run by expatriate kiwi Dr Roger Malcolm and his wife Kura Malcolm, who is from Atiu. Everyone greets you as you pass them, and people are uniformly friendly. Nobody locks anything, and keys are normally left in vehicles. People all seem to be bilingual in Cook Islands Maori and English.
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Today on Radio New Zealand National I broadcast live from the Webstock conference In Wellington. This is an amazing event run by volunteers in Wellington every year. If your day to day business involves creating things on the web, you should definitely go.
I also talk about the social media blackout and the campaign to repeal S92a of the Copyright Act. Here’s where to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)
Last night I went to the Unlimited Potential event in Wellington at which four bloggers tried to predict the future. The prize is the pink tiara, which the proud winner gets to wear until next year’s event.
The bloggers, who were all great sports, were:
Frankly, it wasn’t intended to be very serious – the prize rather signals that, don’t you think – and it wasn’t serious at all. The bloggers had each clearly thought about their stuff, and came out with a range of predictions ranging from things that had already been announced (The Australasian Linux conference will be in Wellington next year) to the likely (Windows 7 will sell better than Vista) to the, well, superficially improbable (Apple will take 75% of the laptop market). The audience lapped it up, with only a modicum of friendly advice and comment to the bloggers, ably abetted by the MC. The winner was chosen by the highly scientific method of seeing who got the loudest applause, whistling, and cat-calls from the audience.
And who won? Well… (more…)
After a break in Europe, then a few days in Abel Tasman National Park to re-connect with summer.
I saw a lot of interesting things:
All in all, I’m convinced that New Zealand is a wonderful place to live.
Recently I went to the launch of Altspace, a co-working venue in Wellington. Co-working is a phenomenon among tiny companies and freelancers. The idea is, that you join a club where there are desks, meeting rooms and an Internet connection. You bring your own phone and laptop. You pay a membership fee and that gives you access to the club, and to a network of other clubs around the world.
Why would people do this? Many of us can’t justify offices of our own. But co-working is a bit more than a serviced office. Co-working stresses interactions among its members – hence the name. Sometimes it’s more productive and more fun to work in the company of others, rather than alone in a home office.
Co-working looks to be the start of something new. It looks really interesting. I hope it takes off.
One Laptop per Child is re-running its Get One, Give One programme this year. That’s fantastic news. It gives rich westerners (which is to say, just about all of us) an opportunity to fund OLPCs getting into the hands of kids in developing nations, while getting our kids’ hands on them as well. (Alright, maybe our hands – these little machines are very cool.)
OLPC is the result of many, many dedicated people working around the world. The project was started by Nicholas Negroponte, of MIT Media Lab fame, but has gone thoroughly global since. Habitués of a certain Wellington water hole will have noticed a team of people with a pile of OLPCs testing software every Saturday.
The G1G1 programme is to be run by Amazon – good on them – and this year it’s going wider than just the US. No word yet on whether it will cover NZ, but why shouldn’t it? It will be backed by a TV advertising campaign in the US and on Youtube. The pricing will be $399 US for two of the neat and distinctive little laptops, with one of them being sent to the purchaser and the other direct to someone who needs it.
There are more details here, and some great blog entries about putting the OLPC into Ethiopia here.
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