Horizon highlights – ‘How’d they do that?’ edition
By Chris Gaylord | 02.27.09
Our regular roundup of sci-tech stories from across the Web includes: How’d they pull off the graphics in “Benjamin Button”? And how’d people tolerate the Web in 1996? Let’s kick it off:
Jurassic Web: The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today
“It’s 1996, and you’re bored. What do you do? If you’re one of the lucky people with an AOL account, you probably do the same thing you’d do in 2009: Go online. Crank up your modem, wait 20 seconds as you log in, and there you are – ‘Welcome.’ You check your mail, then spend a few minutes chatting with your AOL buddies about which of you has the funniest screen name.” [via Slate]
Online Ads: Even the evangelists are turning bearish
“It wasn’t too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media.” [via TechCrunch]
Video: Ed Ulbrich: How Benjamin Button got his face
“Ed Ulbrich, the digital-effects guru from Digital Domain, explains the Oscar-winning technology that allowed his team to digitally create the older versions of Brad Pitt’s face for ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ ” [via TED]
Crowd Source: Website maps global Web blocks
“Internet censorship occurs worldwide for a broad range of reasons, but the exact dimensions of the problem can be hard to document. A website launching today aims to tap the power of ‘crowd sourcing’ – fielding and aggregating reports from volunteers – to provide real-time data on the state of Net filtering.” [via Technology Review]
Why it Matters: The Pirate Bay trial is the collision of ‘Can I?’ and ‘Should I?’ cultures
“People who don’t speak Swedish are missing almost all the interest of the Pirate Bay trial, which is supplied by the frankly unsavoury nature of the defendants. The money man, Carl Lundström, on whose servers The Pirate Bay was housed, is straight out of the crime novels of Stieg Larsson. He inherited a fortune built on crispbread, and has a long history of involvement with extreme rightwing politics.” [via The Guardian]
Comments
2. samk | 02.28.09
I agree with Bill J’s comment regarding what the PBT is really about.
However it should be noted that downloading copyrighted material is not necessarily illegal everywhere. A Canadian Supreme Court decision allows downloading of music files. It is the uploading and “sharing” of the files that are illegal in Canada. Canada has begun to look at changes in the law that would make downloading illegal too, but it has not done so as yet.
3. Tom Regan | 03.01.09
As an old timer whose has been on the Web since 1992, can I just say that only someone who was born, oh, around 1992 maybe, can make a remark like “it was cool to log on to your AOL account and check out funny user names.” It is beyond dumb. They have no idea what a shock to the system the Internet was. Even back in 1992 it was promoting a kind of discussion not seen before. Just in my own experience I saw this. In 1992 two other columnists and I started putting our columns up on a listserv. They generated enormous response. People were really hungry for a chance to participate in this new medium.
By 1996 LOTS of people had Internet accounts, not AOL accounts. (Even by 1996 AOL accounts were on the way out with real Net heads.)Most major daily papers and TV networks were then online. The first signs of broadband were around. (When I loved in Windsor Nova Scotia, Canada, pop. 3400 in 1998, I had dsl service.) Yea, you couldn’t do then what you can now, but you could do a lot.
4. izuka01 | 03.02.09
It wasn’t too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media.
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1. Bill J | 02.27.09
Many people seem to miss what the Pirate Bay trial is actually about. The question is NOT whether or not one should be allowed to download copyrighted material freely (which of course is illegal), but is it legal to perform a search and provide a link to such. The Pirate Bay DOES NOT host any copyrighted material themselves. Infact, copyrighted material never touches their servers. Also, people seem to ignore the fact that Google can perform a very effective torrent search. Most people will also agree the Google immage search will take a user directly to copyrighted content. So, the question (or the trial) is about whether it is, or should be illegal or legal, to provide a link. Some people think it is important not to restrict searching and “linking” as this correlates with freedom of speech, while others beleive one should have explicit consent before pointing users to intellectual property.