C64 makes a comeback!

Posted on | April 3, 2010 | No Comments

Now, this I did not see coming: “The Commodore 64 is getting a makeover, with a new design and some of the latest computing technologies, as the brand gets primed for a comeback. The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel’s 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities.” (via Slashdot – and read more on arnnet.com.au)

FAT Labs “Google Street View car” tactical media strike explained

Posted on | March 14, 2010 | No Comments

We don’t see them as often anymore, the so-called tactical media strikes, where activists manages to get exposure in mainstream media by forging news – as carried out by ao. The Yes Men as well as other cunning activist groups.

But last month there was a brilliant strike made by Berlin’s FAT Labs art activists. The story of how they managed to place a gps-tracker on the Google Street View soared through the Twitter-sphere and got picked up by a series of large media, including The Guardian – as well as on this blog.

Now, however, a newly released blog post and video (well, last month), under the title ‘How To Build A Google Street View Car’, shows that things weren’t quite what they seemed. Rather than explain it all here, I will let below set things straight. Brilliant!

F.A.T. Lab: Fuck Google Week Wrap Up from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

European parliament rejects ACTA in massive 633 to 13 vote

Posted on | March 11, 2010 | No Comments

Euractiv writes, “The European Parliament defied the EU executive today (10 March), casting a vote against an agreement between the EU, the US and other major powers on combating online piracy and threatening to take legal action at the European Court of Justice.
An overwhelming majority of MEPs (663 in favour and 13 against) today voted a resolution criticising the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), arguing that it flouts agreed EU laws on piracy online.”

Glad to hear that there is still sense in politics every now and then – or as one user ‘TechForensics‘ commented on the story on Slashdot: “Talk about sudden outbreaks of common sense”.

Read the entire article here.

A day in the Internet (infographic)

Posted on | March 10, 2010 | 3 Comments

I’ve always been a sucker for infographics and found this beauty over at the Poets & Plumbers blog. It explains the daily data flow on the World Wide Web – and as one could expect, that’s quite impressive.

Danish activists demand to know why their governments block ACTA transparency

Posted on | March 4, 2010 | No Comments

My friend Henrik (@moltke) was on Danish national tv a couple of days ago (see video below) to talk about the major concern of open Internet proponent communities across the globe towards the closed nature of the ACTA (Anti-Countergeiting Trade Agreement) negotiations taking place right now – a measure lead by among other the Danish government.
Henrik’s appearance was Boing Boing’ed as well as picked up by several of the Danish goverment opposition parties, so there is still hope that transparency will ensue in the weeks to come.

Reward talented bloggers with cake! #flattr

Posted on | February 11, 2010 | No Comments

Flattr – from the people behind The Pirate Bay. A way to appreciate Internet content. I believe this will be huge:

FAT Labs vs. Google

Posted on | February 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

Last week here in Berlin the Transmediale Festival took place – and it was great. However, the icing on the cake is to be attributed entirely to Berlin’s own FAT Labs art activism group (Free Art & Technology), who not only had an intriguing stall at the festival itself (titled ‘Fuck Google‘), but also put on a beautiful spectacle chasing the Google Street View car, which happened to criss-cross town at the very same time.

In brilliant live Twitter-report style, everyone could learn how the Google car was being chased – and later, FAT Labs somehow managed to get at GPS tracker attached to the Google car, so that one could track the Googlsters’ trip around the city. Many Germans took the opportunity to get their 15 minutes of fame (or whatever you call the middle finger message) – see the video here:

Google Street Car In Berlin from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Follow FAT Labs on Twitter or visit their website for more antics.

“Google Xistence: Because life is too short for social interaction”

Posted on | January 30, 2010 | 2 Comments

About a week ago, I ran across a hilarious prank called Google Xistence that offered people to take care of the time consuming social media “stuff” by sending out randomly generated status updates and tweets for you, so that you would have time to get some work done. The site even bolstered the brilliant slogan: “Because life is too short for social interaction”. That’s funny.

The idea was so weird and the site so convincing, that – for a moment at least – I caught myself wondering if this in fact a hoax or not. Awesome.

Now the guy behind the website, “AMA” kewagi, has announced on Reddit that the site apparently has had a phishing-scam warning put upon it by Google themselves. He writes, under the headline of ‘I’m the guy behind Google Xistence. AMA‘:

“A few days ago, I launched a fake Google service called Xistence ( http://www.googlexistence.com/ ) that offers to live your social life for you so you can get real things done. After a few hours of frantic Twitter theatre, the nice guys from Mountain View slapped me with a “Phishing Scam” warning, ending my performance. AMA”

Check out the video presentation of the site:

See the Reddit announcement here, follow AMA on Twitter here or go directly to Google Xistence (make sure to mark as ‘not phishing’ in your browser).

Denmark ditches Microsoft

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 6 Comments

This Friday morning it has been announced by the Danish government, that the Danish state administrative body will adopt the open format ODF as its sole document standard from April next year. This means that the Danish state will now ditch Microsoft’s proprietary document formats.

Below is a translation of the article just published by Danish national paper Politiken:

Politiken.dk, Friday January 29, 2010 – 11.45am

DENMARK DITCHES MICROSOFT

The science minister is happy, that the state turns its back on Microsoft.

“Hello, open free standards – and goodbye Microsoft monopoly.”

This is one way to describe the breaking news of the state administration’s use of the so-called open standards, which the Danish parliament has just agreed upon.

After four years of work the political parties have agreed that the state administration body from April next year will convert into using the open format ODF, when the state exchanges documents such as text files and spreadsheets.

This means, that the state to begin with chooses not to work with IT-behemoth Microsoft.

And that is something that science minister Helge Sander [of moderate right wing party Venstre] is proud of.

Enhedslisten [outer left wing party] agrees with the government parties
“My ambition is that we in the future will communicate solely via open standards,” said Helge Sander when addressing the parliament in a speech, according to IT-web magazine version2.dk.

For once the Enhedslisten-party agrees with the party in office. Per Clausen from Enhedslisten expresses get satisfaction over the decision that open standards have been chosen.

“It is our impression that the way forward is through open source, which should replace the patent mind-set that is dominant today,” said Clausen.

ODF is an abbreviation for Open Document Format, which is an ISO-standard for office documents (textfiles, spreadsheets, presentations). ODF was originally developed as document format for the open source-software suite OpenOffice.org, and is still to this day it’s standard format.

Documents saved in ODF can for instance be opened using the OpenOffice suite, which can be downloaded for free on the Internet, and also in Microsoft Word 2007.

The decision will initially apply for state administration body only. Municipalities and country region administrations will join later.

Read the Politiken article (in Danish) – and read also the original publication from web magazine version2.dk

The Apple Paradox, Closed Culture & Free-Thinking Fans

Posted on | January 27, 2010 | No Comments

Now this is something that I, as a complete Apple-o-phile, have also often pondered: How does Apple manage to retain it’s image as the favorite hard- and software provider for the world’s creative open culture community while being such a proprietary-centered business? It’s an immense paradox – which is highlighted in this interesting article from Xconomy.

The lead (slashed from Slashdot) goes:

“The secrecy surrounding the expected Apple tablet computer is only the latest example of the company’s famously closed and controlling culture. Yet millions of designers, musicians, and other creative professionals love their Apple products, and the Apple brand is almost synonymous with free-thinking creativity. How can a company whose philosophy of information sharing is so at odds with that of most of its customers be so successful? This Xconomy essay explores three possible explanations. 1) Closed innovation, overseen by a guiding genius like Steve Jobs, may be the only way to build such coherent, compelling products. 2) Apple’s hardware turns out to be more ‘open’ than the company intended — Jobs originally wanted to keep third-party apps off the iPhone, for example. 3) Related to #1: customers are pragmatic about quality, and the open source and free software movements haven’t produced anything remotely as useful as Mac OS X and the iPhone.”

Read the Xconomy article here.