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Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense brings you the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules. From electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms, Future Tense keeps you up to date on the rapidly changing world of technology.
Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC's As It Happens.
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Two Stanford grads have started a site that serves as a hub for Internet videos about Barack Obama. On YouBama users can watch videos from average voters and celebrity endorsers like George Clooney and Craig Newmark. They can also submit their own videos and vote for their favorite clips, Digg-style.
Yesterday we heard from Nicholas Lemann at the Columbia University journalism school, who argued that indirect or direct government funding might be necessary to prop up mainstream news organizations, which are seeing their losses accelerate as more of the audience moves to Web sites, blogs and other new media.
Today, the other side of the argument from Ralph Whitehead Jr., journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
Whitehead says he has no problems with some government funding already in place, including that which comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But he says expanding that support to newspapers and other struggling news organizations would lead to government control of the press.
As the Internet accelerates the decline of mainstream journalism, Nicholas Lemann argues that the news business needs new economic models to keep it afloat. Lemann, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, says it's time to consider government subsidies. Funding, he says, does not have to equal control.
"Lousy DVR can only record one show at a time. How am I supposed to record Heroes and Two and a Half Men?"
That's one of the complaints you'll find on a humorous blog called White Whine. A banner on the blog describes it as containing "a new white person complaint every day of the week" but mostly it's poking fun at affluence and people who are privileged but occasionally lacking in perspective as they gripe about the imperfections of their iPhones and imported mineral water.
Economist Tim Harford argues against the notion that computers, the Internet, cell phones and other technology have made or will make geography any less relevant.
In his new book The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, Harford argues that in some ways, where you work and live is more important than ever, thanks to the technology that was supposed to make the whole concept of place irrelevant.
Researchers at Purdue University are developing a system to use cell phones to help detect radiation from dirty bombs and nuclear weapons.
They've successfully tested technology that places sensors and special software inside consumer cell phones to detect and track sources of suspicious radiation. They're pushing to blanket the country with radiation sensors by placing the technology in cell phones as well as other devices like laptop computers.
InfoWorld has published its take on the top technology flops of the past two decades. Today's guest is Neil McAllister, InfoWorld contributing editor.
MAPLight.org mashes together two sets of public data: campaign contributions and votes on specific legislation. The idea is to demonstrate the direct connection between the money elected officials receive and how they vote.
Security expert Bruce Schneier says he often surprises people when he tells them his home wireless computer network is wide open - that is, unencrypted and unprotected by a password. Schneier says he's criticized for opening his wifi, but he sees little risk as long as his own computers on the network are property protected. He doesn't worry about people stealing his bandwidth, snooping on passwords, or using his Internet connection for nefarious purposes. Schneier leaves his network open, he says, because it's the polite thing to do.
During his annual presentation at the Macworld Expo Tuesday, Steve Jobs reported that Apple has sold more than 4 million iPhones since the product's launch in the middle of 2007.
In the latest edition of Wired Magazine, contributing editor Fred Vogelstein has the inside story of the iPhone's creation. He describes Apple engineers who sometimes cracked under the pressure to get the innovative smart phones to market. And he reports on the great lengths Apple went to keep the iPhone secret - to the point where the software developers didn't know anything about the iPhone hardware, and vice versa, as it was being developed.
A new poll finds the number of Americans who follow political campaigns on the Internet has more than doubled since 2000. The poll from the Pew Research Center finds nearly one quarter of Americans regularly get news about the presidential campaign from the Internet. The poll also finds young people are turning away from the mainstream media - both TV and print - for their political news.
The Environmental Protection Agency is joining with retailers, manufacturers and service providers to persuade Americans to recycle their old mobile phones. The agency's campaign will feature public service announcements in lifestyle and technology publications that are read by young people who buy new cell phones most often. Partners in the campaign include ATT, Best Buy, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Spint, Staples and T-Mobile.
Also today: A new multimedia Website attempts to document the social and economic toll of Hurricane Katrina. KatrinaMedia.org features articles, photos, radio and video stories calling attention to issues of race, poverty and government raised by the storm.
BigThink is a new video site that features intellectuals from the world of politics, law, business and the arts talking about issues like global warming, the future of newspapers, and the sub-prime mortgage mess. Interviewees so far include Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, presidential candidate John McCain, and business leader Richard Branson. Users can engage in debate on the site, and embed the videos in their own blogs.
Kara Garbe with Twin Cities RISE!, an antipoverty group that provides job training, says her nonprofit could really use a better presence on the Web, but there's no money for it.
"We really direct our funding in the most effective way we can, and that means providing services to our participants," she said. "Having a high-end Website isn't a top priority."
Twin Cities Rise! is one of the Minnesota nonprofits that has applied to participate in the F1 Overnight Website Challenge - set to begin on March 1. The event will pair ten teams of Web developers with 10 Minnesota nonprofit organizations. Together, they'll work for about 24 hours to design brand new Websites.
The Overnight Website challenge is sponsored by Sierra Bravo Corporation, a Twin Cities software development company.
"When you look at 24 hours of time from a team of five or six people, that's a lot of value we're delivering to the nonprofits," said Mark Hurlburt of Sierra Bravo. "We're hoping the teams are going to like working with the nonprofits and they'll continue to be working with them and making that donation as time goes on," he said.
Software developer Robert Fischer is a member of team Ruby.mn, one of the geek teams that will be whipping up a new Website for a lucky nonprofit.
"It gives me a chance to get out there and work with some of these nonprofit organizations, and I'm the kind of person who likes to give back to the community and help out whenever I have the opportunity," Fischer said.
Fischer's team, or one of the other ten teams of geeks, will likely be working through the night with the Riverview Economic Development Association, which works to improve St. Paul's West Side. REDA also organizes the annual Cinco De Mayo event.
"Our Website is fairly static right now and hasn't changed in a long time," said REDA's Brian Gioielli. "We just felt it was time to upgrade a little bit."
The Internet has helped give rise to a new form of expression - the amateur mashup video that typically takes copyrighted material and changes it substantially to form a new work.
Creators of mashups that entertain, criticize, and parody are under pressure from copyright holders who don't want their work borrowed without compensation. But a new study from American University has concluded that many online videos that creatively use copyrighted materials are protected by the legal principle of fair use.
The folks behind the Webby Awards have compiled a list of what they think are the 12 most important Internet videos.
Guest: David-Michel Davies, Webby Awards executive director
A new survey and report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds more than half of Americans visited a library in the past year. Many were drawn in by computers rather than books.
Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30.
