internet

Cyrus Farivar will be hosting two Lift@home events on the 1st and 2nd of July.

His new book, "The Internet of Elsewhere," has just been released and he will be reading a few passages from the book, answering a few questions/having a discussion, and chatting over drinks!

Cyrus is a freelance technology journalist, a freelance radio reporter/producer, and is a wanderlust geek who lives in the city of Bonn, Germany. He is also the science and technology editor for Deutsche Welle English and is the host of its internationally-syndicated radio program, "Spectrum." (http://dw-world.de/spectrum)

Come and join us for:

• Geneva event (Lift office, July 1st)
• Lyon (July 2nd)

David Galbraith is a former architect turned internet entrepreneur. He helped incubate Yelp.com and was one of the authors of the RSS 1.0 specifications. He talks about four trends for the digital world: people vs. celebrities, people vs. robots (recommendations from friends replace algorithmic results), people powered design (consumer Internet products are better than professional ones) and public vs. corporate networks.

Ben Hammersley is a British internet technologist, journalist, and broadcaster, currently based in London, England. He is Editor at Large of Conde Nast's Wired UK magazine, Head of Digital at SIX Creative and Principal of Dangerous Precedent. He is also a freelance reporter for the BBC, and a consultant to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the office of the Prime Minister.

At Lift11, Ben will talk about the impact the internet is having on geopolitics. New communication technologies change the way we conceive the notion of country, and will force us to completely reinvent the way we approach our relations with our partners, who are not only foreign nations anymore...

Ben Hammersley

Editor at Large (UK)
Wired Magazine
» View Lift11 speakers

What is the internet changing in the art of international relations?

Ben Hammersley: For the past 2000 years, geopolitic was based on having distinct countries. Inside that particular line, it is England. Beyond that line, it is France. That was the base on which all international relations were built, good for business, economics, culture.

It used to make a lot of sense. If something was far away, it was foreign, the "others". It had another culture, a different value system, a different language. The internet is removing that physical distance, and the rules change.

The second big shift is that new technologies have facilitated the process of creating groups based on religion, ideas, beliefs, etc. These groups are now influencing the world, and they are most of the time spread over multiple locations. Today, nations are populated by people that are very different, people who may feel culturally closer to a distant country they are originally from, or people whose life could be organized in groups that are not consistent with how society functions.

Can you give us an example?

Al Qaeda. It does not belong to a country, it is an idea. And you can't invade an idea. This is quite a complex change for diplomacy and governments. If you are a nation, you know how to deal with similar organizations, but not with a spontaneous group like the terrorist organizations we see emerge around the world.

That raises an interesting question: how would you use your ressources if you were a government? Imagine you have been named minister of foreign relations. You have one hundred ambassadors to dispatch. You have to make choices. Will you send your representatives to the Maldives, or to Google? Google is a business that is hugely influential, it does not have the same boundaries as a country, nor the same processes, but it is a major force on the geopolitical map! This is the question governments are now facing.

Another force that emerged recently is Wikileaks. What is your opinion on this organization?

While I really support the idea of a safe place for whistleblowers to publish information, I have a problem with the fundamentalistic approach Wikileaks is taking. Their basic assumption is that because something is secret, it must be bad. Reality is more complex. Diplomats are like us simple citizens. They should be allowed to have private conversations and opinions. It seems this social dynamic is not well understood as the recent publications of the cables proves.

Wikileaks is also preaching transparency, but not when it comes to themselves. There operate on different rules, one for the outside world, one for themselves, and that is a bit frustrating.

In the end, I think what they do is a bit naive. There is good when publishing war crime documents, but not hiding the names of people who collaborated with the allies and exposing them to retaliation is bad. Exposing the reality of diplomacy is instructive, but there is no perspective given on the fact that all diplomats from all countries probably talk like that, and that it is nothing new.

I think I understand what Wikileaks does not want. Their attitude speaks louder than words. I just wonder what their project is, what social model they are proposing in replacement of what we have.

David Galbraith has a long history as an entrepreneur. A former architect for Norman Foster, he founded or co-founded Curations, Yelp, Moreover, Origins Network while also co-writing the specifications of RSS 1.0.

At Lift11, David will explain the big trends he sees developing in the digital world, a provocative talk sure to trigger reactions among the audience when he says that the long tail is dead or that there is a huge fight brewing between telcos and internet services providers.

David Galbraith

Chairman
Samba
» View Lift11 speakers

Laurent Haug: What is the most important trend in the digital world right now?

David Galbraith: A significant percentage of the world's money disappeared. It could be like the 1970s - minus the good music - or it could be like the 1930s. Technologies are getting people to talk and exchange like never before. It could make things worse, but if you believe in democracy, you have to believe that the more people talk, the more chances we have for a positive outcome. The green revolution in Iran - which was facilitated by twitter - or the coup d'état that was prevented by SMS in the Philippines, this shows that people are using technologies for the better. There is a lot of self emerging good. The internet works like that. Take a system like chatroulette, it is full of crap but the most popular image we have of it is Merton the guy playing piano. You could somehow sense a certain relief that this technology ended up being used positively.

You will also talk about the upcoming war: people vs algorithms

Yes. Google is imposing algorithms on us. Google or Google News have no human intervention. The Google car can drive itself without a human being behind the wheel. Some companies are trying to replace people with algorithms, but I think it is a ridiculous idea. The internet is a communication network, it needs people in it. That is Google's weak spot, what they are trying to do is fundamentally against the DNA of the internet.

I search for a pizza, I find an aggregated value that is becoming meaningless because it is based on 500 reviews from anonymous people. I have no relationship to them. Day to day, we have 2-3 people influencing our behaviour, and the internet will give us the possibility to recreate that. This is what Facebook wants to do: they are about people, and they clash frontally with the model of Google. Like all good battles, it will be fought on a fundamental level. It's really algorythms vs people, the next big war on the web.

Another big change ahead?

The death of the long tail. The idea behind the long tail is that all the little guys are worth more than the big guys. But mediums do one thing: they amplify celebrity. Since Rudolph Valentino, the world's stars have always been bigger than all the little guys. The phenomena has been amplified by the internet. An artist like Lady Gaga is generating petabytes of data download for Google, Justin Biber is accounting for 3% of Twitter's servers infrastructure. The point is that the internet is a place where the rich get richer. It is a story nobody wants to hear but it is true. The left part of the long tail - the one with the big guys - is bigger than the right part - the smaller guys. This is not getting better, also because of global competition that forced a merger of niches.

Now is a provocative idea: if you take Lady Gaga's downloads and charge them at the SMS rate, it would result in charging 10.5 trillion dollars to customers... A single itunes video would cost more than a million dollars.

Does that mean there is a problem with the way we charge and pay for data?

Yes. There is a fight brewing about the way we carry data. We have two business models competing right now. The internet is like a road: normally you don't pay toll unless it is a really fancy road, there are shops where you can stop and spend your money, advertisements asking for your attention. For the phone, it is like the railway network: you get on a train, everything is controlled by the train company and you pay a ticket to ride. That created this situation where Lady Gaga gets a free ride and generates traffic for which she does not pay. Why isn't she paying? Something's got to give there.

Where is this going? I don't know. But the telcos own the infrastructure so they have the power. And we can expect changes, especially because of videos that are generating more mobile traffic that telcos will try to charge users for.

The latest Lift@home event is a panel discussion hosted by Cyrus Farivar in San Francisco!

On October 27 Cyrus Farivar is hosting the first of a series of monthly panel discussions called Tech Atlas SF (Facebook, Twitter) - where he will tackle global tech issues. Notable guests from the Bay Area (and sometimes farther afield) will be invited to come and chat with Cyrus at the Parisoma coworking space in San Francisco (10th/Folsom, near Civic Center BART).

40 years of Arpanet

October 29, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of the ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. On that day, a small unknown laboratory at UCLA unleashed a force that has since spread to every corner of the globe, revolutionizing communications forever. Just two days before the actual anniversary, we will be looking back at the early days of the ARPANET and will explore what its future holds over the next 40 years.

For this first edition (Oct. 27, 7pm), we have the privilege of featuring Katie Hafner and Brewster Kahle and the show will be broadcast live on SF Appeal and VidSF.

Panelists

Katie Hafner, author of “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet” (Simon & Schuster, 1998), former New York Times reporter.

Brewster Kahle, founder of The Internet Archive.

Danny O’Brien, EFF, international outreach coordinator.

Cyrus Farivar, freelance tech journalist (NPR, PRI’s The World, CBC), author of the forthcoming “The Internet of Elsewhere” (Rutgers University Press, 2011)

More information on the event's homepage.

We have a last minute addition to the Lift Asia 09 program, a panel with three of the pioneers who helped create the internet industry in Korea!

20 years of Korean internet
The pioneers who built the Korean internet will share their story, reflecting on a soon-to-be 20 years old industry, offering insights on the future of a media that went from being an early adopter tool to become a society changing technology used by 40 million people in Korea.

Speakers:
• Jin Ho Hur, CEO of Neowiz, operators of Korea's second largest social network.
• Jaewoong Lee, Founder of Daum
• Soon Hyun Hwang, Vice President, NC Soft

This is quite big to have these guys on stage sharing their experience on how they helped make Korea the world's most wired country! Grab one of the remaining tickets and join us at Lift Asia on Thursday!

From the Jurassic Era of the Internet to its Futures

IP protocol inventor Vinton Cerf, who is now Vice President and Internet Evangelist at Google gave the concluding talk at Lift 09. After a quick recap of the history of the Internet, he basically gives an enthusiastic tour of its current limits (bitrot, IP address shortage) as well projects about its evolution, such as interplanetary internet though satellites.

After a quick introduction of the event, Lift founder Laurent Haug, joined on stage by Daum's founder Jaewoong Lee gives an overview of the Lift Asia 08 conference. He briefly addresses the topic choice and describe the profile of the speakers.

After a quick introduction of the event, Lift founder Laurent Haug, joined on stage by Daum's founder Jaewoong Lee gives an overview of the Lift Asia 08 conference. He briefly addresses the topic choice and describe the profile of the speakers.