Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/03/08

Producer/host: Jim Campbell

Tired of hearing about all those “best of, worst of” lists for 2007? A lot of us are. But there is one list that is worth taking a look at if you are one of those people who values personal autonomy. Privacy International has published their list of Surveillance Societies, and it contains a few big surprises, none of them pleasant. Here’s a summary.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 12/27/07

Producer/host: Jim Campbell

Topic: In the dark of winter, we often focus our attention on getting ready for holidays, and let our attention drift from matters digital. Understandable but not always a good idea since other things are going on in the dark that we might not find to our liking when they hit the light. Take, for example, the FBI’s new billion dollar Next Generation Identification system…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 12/13/07

Producer/host: Jim Campbell

Ever wonder how social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace that don’t charge for membership manage to make money. Lately, these sites have decided that the currency of the information universe is information, and they have
plenty of that. Unfortunately, the information they have is information about the interests and tastes and purchases of their members, and hawking that brings up some real privacy problems for those members, and a lot of members don’t like it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 11/29/07

Producer/host: Jim Campbell

Topic: Getting ready to go out and buy one of those spiffy new high definition DVD players for your living room? You may want to hold up a minute since there are two competing – and incompatible – standards out there these days: Blu-ray and HDD. If you buy one and the other standard wins out, you could be stuck with a pretty expensive dinosaur. Shades of the Betamax vs. VHS wars of 20 years ago! Listen up before you decide if it’s truly time to partwith a good piece of change for one or the other of these machines.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 11/08/07

Producer/host: Jim Campbell

Do you feel a little nervous about the electronic trail you leave behind when you surf the Internet? If not, you should. Companies and government organizations are eager to form profiles of your interests and tastes based on your surfing habits. Happily, there are some simple things you can do to make their work a lot harder and to keep your business to yourself. Here are a few.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download