European and EU-centric matters
Με αφορμή την ανακοίνωση για το κλείσιμο της Athens News στις αρχές του μήνα αποφάσισα να γράψω για την δημοσιογραφία στην Ελλάδα. Μάλλον ιδιαίτερως ελάσσονος σημασίας ως δημοσίευμα, η ξαφνική διακοπή της έκδοσης της Athens News, μιας εφημερίδας που κυκλοφορούσε για 57 χρόνια, θαρρώ πως προδίδει μια γενικότερη τάση που αργά ή γρήγορα θαρρώ πως […]
1,000Mbits of transit over Gigabit Ethernet in Bucharest now costs no more than it does in London - and only a couple of dollars more than in San Francisco. That’s incredible, and impressive. Talk about returning to Europe.[via AFoE] Impressive, indeed! Anyone knows what the price is in Athens?
It's not as if any government anywhere (let alone the European Commission) ever preempted technological innovation and successfully regulated it, before it even became reality. Take for example what happened with Biofuel in the EU. Or renewables. Or, as a matter of fact, the 'net itself. So it actually begs the question: What on earth were the (seemingly clueless) bureaucrats that drafted this press release thinking when they coined their own pointless buzzword (as if there aren't enough already) in 'Web 3.0' and proceeded in presenting their equally pointless milestones and grand vision, when the EU funding for broadband has rivalled Gore's Information Superhighway in waste, frivolousness and incoherence?
In spite of the lack of substance in the press release, there are some good parts in the related Commission report, The Future Networks and the Internet. Nope, it's not the internet of 'things' or 'stimulating investment in high-speed broadband' or --- ironically --- 'building the net of the future'. Instead I found keeping the 'net open and guaranteeing availability to be the most useful (and realistic) of the themes presented in the report. In any case, thinking about the future is commendable and could prove extremely wise; the way the Commission attempts to achieve it seems completely wrong and betrays ignorance of how and why technology such as the 'net can have such a disruptive effect in society (hint: yep, lack of regulation definitely had something to do with it).
A public consultation on the 'early challenges of the Internet of Things' is open until the 28th of November. Earlier today, ten days since my return from Brussels, I received an email from Mr. Lambrinidis regarding a number of amendments on the upcoming e-Privacy directive that he contributed to. An interesting topic that I think merits a short post was that of breach notification. Breach notification refers to the situation when citizens whose personal […]
Diomidis Spinellis wrote earlier today about the EUs planning priorities for research and how he thinks that’s bad for innovation. I agree with his thesis, but I find his complaint somewhat naïve. Let me explain myself: If I could only give one reason to the question “What’s wrong with EU Funded Research?”, I don’t believe […]
Λίγο πριν την αναχώρηση για τις Βρυξέλλες, έκατσα και συγκέντρωσα σημειώσεις, bookmarks και σκέψεις σχετικά με τα θέματα προς συζήτηση. Μπορεί κανείς να συνοψίσει τα βασικά ζητήματα στο παρακάτω πίνακα: Στη κορυφή του πίνακα παραθέτω τις χαρακτηριστικές ‘εφαρμογές’, ή αν προτιμάτε δραστηριότητες που φέρονται να ‘απαιτούν’ επιπλέον νομοθετική ‘ρύθμιση’. Αφ’ενός το peer to peer, ή […]