Saturday 20 September 2008

The Future of the Internet (And How to Stop It)


CBC Radio Full Interview: Jonathan Zittrain: Nora Young writes "Recently, I had the chance to interview Jonathan Zittrain. Jonathan is one of the founders of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, and he also holds the chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford.

He's just written a book called The Future of the Internet, And How to Stop It. Basically, he argues that in the history of computing, we've wavered between proprietary approaches which control how the technology is used, and more open-ended, approaches. Jonathan thinks we're at a watershed moment right now, as the 'anything goes' nature of the internet is endangered by our increasing use of ???tethered appliances,??? all the smart phones and gaming consoles and so on, that are designed to be used in a particular way. Users can???t tinker with them the way they can, say, add the software they choose to a PC.

We reached Jonathan via Skype."


"The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)" is released under CreativeCommons.org and, for those who like electronic editions, can be downloaded for free. Those who still prefer the feel and flexibility of print can get that too.