Category Computing

The Mac at Forty

Even in the darkest times (for Apple), in the mid to late 1990s, the importance of the Macintosh could not be understated. Today, exactly 40 years to the day, Apple is constantly contending for the top spot in market cap globally, the Mac is far from Apple’s most profitable product, but it’s arguably, still, one […]

The Coding Robot

Back in 2019, after deciding to leave Beat, I was contemplating starting a new project. It was an ML-based project, informed by my experience at both smaller and larger companies, like Beat: An ML-based Code Reviewer. The idea was that smaller companies, founders aside, seldom have senior engineering talent on board, and the quality of […]

Starlink and Natural Monopolies

A couple of weeks ago Elon Musk tweeted (or Xed, or whatever it’s called today) that Starlink has broken even and congratulated its team. The company has been offering fast satellite internet access through its own Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of more than 5000 satellites. As part of SpaceX, it’s the first company of […]

Regression 11

Months before Windows 95 came out in late August 1995, a number of screenshots from β versions of the much touted and eagerly awaited operating environment had circulated both on the, then nascent World Wide Web, and the computing press. Among the most profound changes from earlier incarnations of Windows was the introduction of the […]

Why despite the EU's €4.3bn Google Fine, things won't be fine.

A few days ago, the European Union decided to hit Google with a €4.3bn fine. The reasons put forward by the European Commission focus on the company’s MADA or Mobile Application Distribution Agreement, that all device manufacturers that want to license Google’s apps and include the Google Play Store with their devices are forced to […]

The jing-jang of hardware and software support

Ever since the 1980s, a vicious cycle of software and hardware requirements and updates has ‘plagued’ users and maintained high and constant rents to the vendors who systematically collude to render their previous offerings obsolete, while forcing (not enticing) their customers to upgrade to the latest incarnation of their products. The justification for this form […]

Ζήτημα αξιοπιστίας

Ένα από τα μεγάλα προβλήματα στο ελληνικό επιχειρείν είναι αυτό της αξιοπιστίας. Συχνά, κατηγορούμαστε, ως λαός, πως αποφεύγουμε το ρίσκο, πως είμαστε καχύποπτοι και συντηρητικοί στις ενέργειες, τα πλάνα, την γενικότερη δραστηριότητά μας. Και σε έναν μεγάλο βαθμό είναι αλήθεια. Υπάρχουν όμως και αρκετοί λόγοι που συμβαίνει αυτό: η ελληνική πραγματικότητα είναι γεμάτη από περιπτώσεις […]

Disempowering the user.

I think what really happened was that in the early days of personal computing, decisions were made to give the user an enormous amount of freedom, to communicate without barriers and to share files. And consumers started to use those to, you know, trade information, outside of the boundaries of the law. Since about 2007 or 2008 though we've seen a complete shift in this paradigm. Since that time the technologists and the rights holders have really been working together to disempower the user and to turn them more into a customer. So the goal is no longer to empower the computing user, it's to extract value from them. And I think if you look at your smartphone you'll see that: it's a lot more closed than a PC used to be. You almost always have to go through a corporate intermediary. And that was not the case in the early days of computing. There was a period there where the average user had an extraordinary amount of power to do, basically, what they saw fit.

This is a quote by Stephen Witt, author of 'How Music Got Free', as mentioned in The Pop Star and the Prophet (around the 20 minute mark), a BBC podcast published back in September --- if you're a music lover in addition to a technology enthusiast, you should listen to the podcast and, perhaps, read the book.

And while his book is probably only tangentially interesting to anyone interested in the history of technology, but without an interest in music, the quote couldn't possibly be more accurate or well-put.

Δυο ημέρες με το Myo

Πριν από τρία περίπου χρόνια εξετάζαμε το ενδεχόμενο ανάπτυξης του AthensBook ως ένα ‘φυσικό’ αντικείμενο (κιόσκι) το οποίο θα βρισκόταν σε συγκεκριμένα σημεία στην πόλη (π.χ. στο lobby ενός ξενοδοχείου, ενός δημόσιου κτηρίου ή την σάλα ενός καταστήματος) και θα επέτρεπε σε περαστικούς αλλά και τακτικούς χρήστες της εφαρμογής να λάβουν υπερ-τοπικές πληροφορίες ακόμη και […]

The 'Net As A Utility – Arcs of Political Discourse

In the years between his sensational appearance as a Junior Senator before his colleagues at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and his election in late 2008, Barack Obama carefully built a public profile of a quasi-radical reformist who, at the same time, is in touch with the world and realistic about the limits and […]