I haven't read this yet, but it seemed interesting.

Earlier this week, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, held a remarkably interesting conference titled "Panic Attack: The New Precautionary Culture, the Politics of Fear, and the Risks to Innovation." It was interesting not only because I was a participant, but because it looked at how many Western countries are losing their cultural nerve, as evidenced by the increasing cultural acceptance of the so-called precautionary principle.

The strongest versions of the precautionary principle demand that innovators prove that their inventions will never cause harm before they are allowed to deploy or sell them. In other words, if an action might cause harm, then inaction is preferable. The problem is that all new activities, especially those involving scientific research and technological innovation, always carry some risks. Attempting to avoid all risk is a recipe for technological and economic stagnation.

Bill Joy came to mind.

Culture of Fear: Dealing with cultural panic attacks

Call ordinary phones all over the world for free; you just have to share your phone, too.

fwdOUT Network WebHome

Cambridge academic Ross Anderson told MPs it would mean more computer files being encrypted.

He urged the government to look at establishing "back door" ways of getting around encryptions.

Ross Anderson supports GAK!?

BBC NEWS | Politics | UK holds Microsoft security talks

Google regularly brings in speakers to give 'tech talks' on all sorts of subjects. They've started to make some of these talks available for free (with the permission of the presenters) to the rest of the world via Google Video.

Boing Boing: Videos of guest-speakers at Google

Well now Honda UK is taking it to another level with their Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) that not only regulates your speed, but manages the turning, allowing you a full auto-pilot system for your Accord when you're out on the freeway.

Nice... See, I do have an excuse to have a TV in the front seat of my SUV!!

Honda Accord ADAS auto-pilot system takes the reins - Engadget

Oh, now, this is cool. There’s been a thread over at arstechnica asking for a full-screen terminal app for Mac OS X, and the guys at that forum unearthed the uber-geeky terminal app “GLTerminal”. GLTerminal emulates a 1970’s terminal monitor, complete with flaws in brightness, warped display curvature, and flicker. It even simulates baud rate lag. And! for extra verisimilitude, the character colors can be green or amber.

ldopa.net » archive » glterminal

Their "open" DRM platform requires licencees to sign an agreement with Microsoft, and pay a licence fee that serves to keep the number of licencees small. A fellow attendee's verbatim note was: "We don't want this technology to be available to every hobbyist...."

Microsoft just declared war.

Blogzilla: DRM-a-go-go

This is your opportunity to have your Top-Level Domain related questions responded by Vint Cerf. Please post your questions using the comment submission button below (similar to posting a comment). Please limit your questions to one per comment.

"I have one question, in 27 parts..."

Ask Vint Cerf: The Road Ahead for Top-Level Domains

Cell Phone Call Record $110

Give us the cell phone number and we will send you the calls made from the cell phone number.

Cell Phone Number Research

What really blows my mind is how simple and obvious MakeBot is. In short, MakeBot is an IM chat bot - it looks like any other IM buddy.

John Battelle's mind blows over hackerish IM bots that talk to RSS feeds. I'm not sure how mind blowing this is, as people have been doing this stuff on IRC for years, but maybe it will inspire someone out there to do a project.... It might be a nice way to avoid dealing with crappy web browsers in phones, but MemeStreams works rather well on my sidekick...

John Battelle's Searchblog: What Happens When You Mashup RSS, IM, and Publishing Services?