On days like this, I remember why I’ve always wanted to be a technology journalist. I’m really trying to get closer to what it means to change the world. It is after all, a very complicated enterprise.
October 2nd, 2011
What happens when drones steal the show
Wired, which I write for now, loves drones. The public loves reading about drones: big ones, little ones, bug-sized ones, blimp-like ones. The C.I.A. drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki may have just reinforced the idea on the Beltway that drones are the answer to terrorism. Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says this might be a little bit problematic.
“What gets lost are all the other instruments of national power,” including diplomacy, trade policy and development aid, Mr. Zenko said. “But these days those tools never get adequate consideration, because drones get all the attention.”
Peter W. Singer, Brookings Institution, offers a warning against over-politicizing the question of whether drones are good or bad:
the debate over drones is like debating the merits of computers in 1979: They are they here to stay, and the boom has barely begun. “We are at the Wright Brothers Flier stage of this,” he said.
May 5th, 2011
The Opposition Will Come Of Age on the Internet
My mom wants me to change my profile picture. Too political, she says.
My mother, who’s noticed that my usual Facebook photograph has been swapped out for the Singapore Democratic Party logo, wants me to change my profile picture. “Please be more circumspect for your own sake,” she warns.
The lead-up to Singapore’s 2011 General Elections has turned the Internet into a bustling political forum for the first time, but it’s also revealed a disconnect between a generation that came of age on the Internet, and those that didn’t.
Online spaces have matured with Twitter and Facebook creating conversations about politics that would have never happened publicly before. The one that haunts me is one that took place on a friend’s wall, where someone spoke about being angry and upset that his mother believed that her vote would be screened by the government.
The blogs that have sprouted up this election season have successfully put the public glare on individuals — and their Kate Spade bags – when Singapore politics has tended to have the quality of being faceless under a GRC — Group Representation Constituency — system, where candidates contest as part of a larger group. This has humanized politics a little and added some color between the shots of men in white and more men in white.
What would grow the debate would be more content to talk about. With the Straits Times’ putting most of its content behind a paywall, the largest repository of English national news is not accessible. That’s a negative externality of having the Singapore Press Holdings monopolize most of the media in the country. Without any Freedom of Information Act laws instituted, public records and the kind of data you see on Data.gov don’t get circulated.
The Temesek Review and Online Citizen are attempts to provide another view; but conversational spaces need to be more bipartisan and less explicitly political if they’re committed to building real debate.
And the online ecosystem plays interesting games to avoid raising eyebrows.
Satire validates its own existence by professing to say nothing serious – while being perfectly serious at the same time. TalkingCock didn’t play this circumvention game so well, evidently. (“We donno how we’ve escaped the speech-smothering tentacles of the state” were among its famous last words.) MrBrown has been going strong, suggesting family-oriented, slapstick humor with a slight political edge, might be a savvy formula.
While it draws the eyeballs, that’s not to say that the formula these sites have taken have been — deliberately or incidentally — a way of routing around the problem.
SDP’s Vincent Wikeysingha, spoke at Holland Bukit Timah’s rally on May 2. He said,
“In the 50s they told our grandparents if they didn’t vote for the PAP there would be colonial domination. In the 60s they told us if we didn’t continue to support them, the Communists would come down from Vietnam and there would be no more rice. in the 70s, they said we were susceptible to Euro-Communists who would take over the government and in the 80s they accused … Vincent and their friends of a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the state. In the 90s they told us our jobs would be at stake if we voted for the opposition, and today they told us that if we vote for the alternative parties, we would live to repent.”
I want to tell my mother – and the people who call for circumspection – that fear is one of barriers to building that conversation that we want to have. Those not afraid to do this should put care and take responsibility for our words.The revolution will not be tweeted; especially so in Singapore. But if Singaporeans can foster an Internet culture where dissent doesn’t have to be read as disloyalty, where political thought is not seen as antagonistic to governance, and most importantly — political speech is responsible speech — half the battle would be won.
January 22nd, 2011
Don’t even think about it, Apple warns, as tamperproof screws appear on iPhones
Apple has marketed its products as precious, but could popularity erode its niche appeal?
Tamperproof screw have started appearing on the iPhone 4, a sign that it will be more difficult for users to mess with the next generation of Apple’s products. That’s not out of line with how Apple has created that untouchable aura around its empire of shiny, futuristic, fetishized products. It’s a pain to crack open iPhones. This means that saving a waterlogged phone is virtually impossible. But why try to save a phone when you can…buy the newest iPhone??
Apple products have an air of being precious — the company has managed to build this up by building up the anticipation around product releases to fever pitch, kicking Adobe Flash (hated by Steve Jobs) off gadgets for “security;” and by adopting operating systems that aren’t easily integrated with others. The result: the ultimate lust object that guards a secret world around it.
The hush-hush politeness during earnings call on Tuesday shows how well-trained analysts are in the shadow of Steve Jobs. None of the analysts raised the billion-dollar question: How will Jobs’ leave of absence, announced Monday, affect the company? The “surprisingly low valuation” of Apple’s stock also masks the impact from Jobs’ latest health scare.
But numbers reveal that Apple isn’t the new niche anymore. Its latest earning report showed sales of 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter — 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Analysts are always charged with lowering Apple’s projected profits to make earnings announcement more stunning. (The $6 billion quarterly profit, for instance was well above the $4.3 billion made last quarter.) But perhaps the mismatch between analysts’ expectations and the actual results isn’t just a gimmick but a symptom of a looming question. Is Apple losing its grip over the niche image that it has always fiercely guarded? Will its growing popularity — paradoxically — betray its efforts to market its products as precious?
January 11th, 2011
Singapore satellite imagery appears online after Home Affairs Minister denounces leaks
Cryptome publishes images of “prohibited places” available on Google Earth, offers snub to Singapore’s Official Secrets Act.
Aerial footage of Singapore’s military sites appeared online hours after Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam denounced whistleblowing and outlined the government’s commitment to prosecuting any leaks of classified official information in a parliamentary session Jan. 10.
Published on Cryptome.org, the 34 satellite imagery photographs of military facilities include zoomed-in shots of prisons, barracks, weapon storage facilities; training and naval bases such as the RAF and Changi military landing strips.
Co-founded by John Young, a WikiLeaks defector and vocal critic of Julian Assange, the site serves as a repository of leaked documents — whether open, secret, or classified — that are prohibited for publication by governments. The photos were part of the Cryptome Eyeball Series, which contains documents sensitive sites customarily concealed from public view.
According to the Singapore Statutes, “prohibited places” include “any work of defence, arsenal, naval, military or air force establishment, barrack, camp or station, factory, dockyard, mine, minefield, ship or aircraft belonging to or occupied by or on behalf of the armed forces.”
The satellite pictures, however, were publicly available Google Earth images. The point that Cryptome was trying to make, it seems, is that legal and political structures to prevent the flow of information may be antiquated in the age of the Internet.
In his parliamentary response, Shanmugam criticized the American Shield Bill, a legislative proposal recently introduced in Congress and House aimed at broadening the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers, but would not limit the media from publishing these leaks.
“In such a framework, confidential information will become the object of a cat and mouse game,” said Shanmugam, suggesting that the Singapore media or other independent parties would be culpable if they published the leaks, “We believe that everyone involved in a leak of information, whether in Government or outside, should be dealt with firmly.”
January 11th, 2011
Five music videos — starring robots — to make your day
Robots have always been cool, but with the geekification of society, they’re so cool that they’ve positively become mainstream. Not unlike most “indie music” which catapulted into the realm of the “mainstream” with the Internet and major label contracts in the 2000? I’ve compiled 5 music videos, starring robots, and most importantly, good music.
Bjork’s “All is full of love,” 1999.
Rising out of a dark, industrial landscape is Bjork: backlit, splayed out in all her resplendent robotic beauty. da Vinci-esque machines whir around and construct her with the deliberateness of artists’ hands. The movie is fraught with biblical allusion: out of the void, a second Bjork robot emerges, like an Eve, seducing her other with song. The erotic embrace of both robots has gotten tongues wagging: Is this a statement about homosexuality? Is it a metaphor of masturbation? Like Bjork, it’s beautiful, haunting, weird, and more than just a little creepy.
Badly Drawn Boy’s “Silent Sigh,” 2002.
A robot lands in the glacial landscape that is Planet Earth 2000 years after our time, and chances upon a pair of webbed feet overturned in the ice. He scans the creature, peers into what emerges as the tortured and lovelorn psyche of a drowned duck, and performs the miracle operation. In strange times when humans seem to be tearing one another apart, robots might be the key to humanity’s salvation.
Lupe Fiasco’s “Daydreamin’” featuring Jill Scott, 2006.
Lupe Fiasco skates into his hiphop art concept store, “Righteous Kung Fu,” and begins unstocking boxes of designer shirts and vinyl records. R&B singer Jill Scott sings from the cover of one of them; her lips — full, glistening and luxurious — invite lust like the skateboards on display. The robot that haunts the isles of the store brings out the anxiety surrounding this self-conscious statement of how hiphop art has become a commodity. The rapping — about hoes and crackheads and homies — clashes with the pristine-ness of Fiasco’s store, in the same way soul, hiphop and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake come together in masterful contradiction in this mix.
Flight of the Conchords, “The humans are dead,” 2007.
The best part of this comedy piece is when Bret McKenzie yells, “Binary solo!” and Jermaine Clement starts singing, “0000001, 00000011/000000111, 00001111/0000001, 00000011/000000111, 00001111.” To which Bret responds, “Come on sucker, lick my battery.” ’Nuff said.
(Thanks @dandelionwyne)
Dan Mangan’s “Robots,” 2009.
Starring a motley crew of 20-ers in torn jeans, converse shoes and bug-eye glasses, fresh out of a Hipstamatic/faux polaroid camera snapshot. A silent confrontation between two hipster gangs on a railway track culminates in a violent fight between their robots. In the end, the commonality of plaid trumps robot politics! Lame.
December 14th, 2010
Photographing the First Lady
A photojournalist just starting out reflects on capturing Michelle Obama for the first time, the rise of news tourism, and the iconography of the First Lady.
“The role of First Lady has been perceived as largely symbolic,” Hillary Clinton wrote in her memoirs. “She is expected to represent an ideal — and largely mythical — concept of American womanhood.
The ease of operating a DSLR camera and the shoestring budgets that newsrooms are run on these days throw many journalists into the role of photographer. This multitasking can be very daunting — and empowering. When my editor at Government Executive Magazine, Kellie Lunney, asked if I wanted to photograph First Lady Michelle Obama in May, I nearly fell off my chair. Who wouldn’t pass the opportunity to capture — and recast — a woman who is absolutely larger-than-life?
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December 2nd, 2010
The age of shared Wifi
Keywifi, a new kid in the New York City start-up scene, has big dreams of being the new AirBnB of Wifi-sharing. Fon, distributor of the Fonera Wifi-sharing routers, thinks it’s time to court the U.S. market again after a disappointing attempt in 2006. Are we ready to embrace Wifi-sharing?
Home ownership may be the American dream, but getting a free wireless connection on the fly is the fantasy of the floating Internet user. After spending thousands of dollars turning a crumbling upstate New York house into something livable, Adam Black didn’t want to pay more for Internet if he didn’t have to — especially in a rural area with expensive wireless access.
So he bought an aerial device to pick up the Wifi signal from the garage down the road, and sealed a deal with its owners — in kind.
“We gave the guys a six-pack of beer each month,” he said, “They’re very happy and we’re very happy and nobody cared.” Black estimated that he saved $60 a month — $720 a year — through this arrangement.
Keywifi, Black’s Brooklyn-based start-up will accomplish what his booze-for-bandwidth deal did. When launched in New York City in the next couple of months (Black was coy about when the big date would be), Keywifi.com will serve as a marketplace where people can rent out their Wifi passwords to those who need it. You’ll pay $9.89 a month to get access to 5 Wifi passwords. Keywifi takes a third of the cut.
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November 20th, 2010
In case of fire, run into the garden
Infinite abundance, on demand. The New American Dream.
“In the American mind,” writes Chris Suellentrop in Wired, “renters are regarded as an unsavory lot, willful dissidents from the American dream.” The freedom from ownership is “infinite abundance, on demand,” he says, “Doesn’t that sound like the new century’s American dream?”
As a 20-er saddled under car repair bills and tickets, and waiting for the freelance check that never comes, it’s tempting to buy that. So here I am, in my postage stamp sublet in Astoria, living in glamour in the basement’s boiler room. All night, I hear the water pipes above my head gurgling — it’s a mad scientist’s fantasy.
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