Quite honestly, to me, the future of technology is bleak. Of course, I don't mean that technological advances are going to cease--in fact, I expect technology to exponentially increase as time goes on. What upsets me is the nature of technology.
We should see it coming. In the first half of the 1990s, before internet access was common, there was a certain paradigm to technology that allowed the consumer to consistently "do more" with it. And what technology has done for us! Digital applications of film, for instance, has shown us worlds that look as real as if they actually existed concretely. Digital technology, in addition, has finally made signal degradation a thing of the past; endless flawless copies of video and audio can be preserved infinitely...
...but we had to know that this wouldn't last forever. The concept of business requires one to constantly "buy." With technology hitting a place near "perfection," we've now hit the newest phase of technological advancement: control. Yes, while technology of the 1980s and most of the 1990s were built with the idea of giving the consumer more and more, technology is now being created to significantly control what we can do with technology.
Ever hear of Microsoft's .NET initiatives? You might have heard the term ".NET" before in dealing with the Microsoft Passport system. That doesn't even scratch the surface. .NET, when fully in place (perhaps 2010?), will set up a subscription-based service to Microsoft and all its software--namely, MS Windows--and to eliminate package-based software that one can currently buy at stores. Of course, what that means is that, effectively, Microsoft wins. By making itself a "utility" company of sort, it can ensure itself a constant and significant source of income, while controlling every aspect of what you can install on your computer. Do you not think that third-party software makers won't fall in line?
The second phase of ensuring .NET's dominance (after Microsoft Passport) is "Palladium," or Digital Rights Management (DRM). Both the dominant Intel and its main competitor, AMD, intend to encode this system into its chips. DRM's explicit purpose is to force copyright control. Sure, these companies may be unable to stop P2P services like Kazaa currently, but all they needed to do was to put in controls into the PC itself that won't allow such programs to run. DRM systems in development have zero regard for privacy and insist on the computer user identifying him/herself before using any of this media--which, of course, will be time-limited media that one must purchase and will not be transferrable to other computers or devices like MP3 players. As it stands, an early form of DRM already exists in Windows Media Player with an embedded "globally-unique identifier" (GUID) that tracks all users. The GUID logs what media the user views and "phones home" to a central server to pick up content titles (similar to CDDB-enabled applications).
Once DRM is fully encrypted in each new PC, effectively, privacy will be fully non-existant. First, it comes off with the seemingly "lawful" intent of eliminating copyright violations. But does it stop there? Certainly not. HDTV is expected to be fitted with encrypters that prevent copying. Goodbye to VCRs as we know them, as these encrypters are to prevent one from transferring media to another machine. Want to borrow a tape from a friend? You're going to be out of luck!
This is all possible, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), which, effectively, eliminated prior Fair Use legislation in regards to all digital media--CDs, DVDs, HDTV, PCs...anything digital. The concept of "independence" in computing and digital media will be a distant memory by 2010, just as the i486 is now a distant memory from ten years prior. With DRM embedded in everything from computer chips to hard drives to even removeable media, we'll be reduced to nothing more than a passive commercial audience--a lamentingly far cry from when the computer moguls of our time--Microsoft's Bill Gates and one of Apple's co-founders, Steve Wozniak--were little more than college dropouts hacking apart old Altair systems and advancing computing much further than the corporate counterparts were willing to do.
DRM, DMCA, coupled with the "anti-terrorism" provisions in the U.S. Patriot Act of 2001 and the bill that created Homeland Security Department most recently, will ensure that privacy we take for granted today will cease to be. The makings of an Orwellian nightmare is just around the corner, and, whether we like it or not, will exist in no less than ten years time...and all of it is perfectly legal.
Melon
We should see it coming. In the first half of the 1990s, before internet access was common, there was a certain paradigm to technology that allowed the consumer to consistently "do more" with it. And what technology has done for us! Digital applications of film, for instance, has shown us worlds that look as real as if they actually existed concretely. Digital technology, in addition, has finally made signal degradation a thing of the past; endless flawless copies of video and audio can be preserved infinitely...
...but we had to know that this wouldn't last forever. The concept of business requires one to constantly "buy." With technology hitting a place near "perfection," we've now hit the newest phase of technological advancement: control. Yes, while technology of the 1980s and most of the 1990s were built with the idea of giving the consumer more and more, technology is now being created to significantly control what we can do with technology.
Ever hear of Microsoft's .NET initiatives? You might have heard the term ".NET" before in dealing with the Microsoft Passport system. That doesn't even scratch the surface. .NET, when fully in place (perhaps 2010?), will set up a subscription-based service to Microsoft and all its software--namely, MS Windows--and to eliminate package-based software that one can currently buy at stores. Of course, what that means is that, effectively, Microsoft wins. By making itself a "utility" company of sort, it can ensure itself a constant and significant source of income, while controlling every aspect of what you can install on your computer. Do you not think that third-party software makers won't fall in line?
The second phase of ensuring .NET's dominance (after Microsoft Passport) is "Palladium," or Digital Rights Management (DRM). Both the dominant Intel and its main competitor, AMD, intend to encode this system into its chips. DRM's explicit purpose is to force copyright control. Sure, these companies may be unable to stop P2P services like Kazaa currently, but all they needed to do was to put in controls into the PC itself that won't allow such programs to run. DRM systems in development have zero regard for privacy and insist on the computer user identifying him/herself before using any of this media--which, of course, will be time-limited media that one must purchase and will not be transferrable to other computers or devices like MP3 players. As it stands, an early form of DRM already exists in Windows Media Player with an embedded "globally-unique identifier" (GUID) that tracks all users. The GUID logs what media the user views and "phones home" to a central server to pick up content titles (similar to CDDB-enabled applications).
Once DRM is fully encrypted in each new PC, effectively, privacy will be fully non-existant. First, it comes off with the seemingly "lawful" intent of eliminating copyright violations. But does it stop there? Certainly not. HDTV is expected to be fitted with encrypters that prevent copying. Goodbye to VCRs as we know them, as these encrypters are to prevent one from transferring media to another machine. Want to borrow a tape from a friend? You're going to be out of luck!
This is all possible, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), which, effectively, eliminated prior Fair Use legislation in regards to all digital media--CDs, DVDs, HDTV, PCs...anything digital. The concept of "independence" in computing and digital media will be a distant memory by 2010, just as the i486 is now a distant memory from ten years prior. With DRM embedded in everything from computer chips to hard drives to even removeable media, we'll be reduced to nothing more than a passive commercial audience--a lamentingly far cry from when the computer moguls of our time--Microsoft's Bill Gates and one of Apple's co-founders, Steve Wozniak--were little more than college dropouts hacking apart old Altair systems and advancing computing much further than the corporate counterparts were willing to do.
DRM, DMCA, coupled with the "anti-terrorism" provisions in the U.S. Patriot Act of 2001 and the bill that created Homeland Security Department most recently, will ensure that privacy we take for granted today will cease to be. The makings of an Orwellian nightmare is just around the corner, and, whether we like it or not, will exist in no less than ten years time...and all of it is perfectly legal.
Melon
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