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02 November 2012

Talking data mining on ABC Gippsland

Every now and then I end up doing an explainer that starts at the very beginning — like this radio spot about data mining for ABC Gippsland this morning.

Breakfast presenter Gerard Callinan has posted the audio under the title Mapping key strokes. Who’s watching?

For many of us, the idea of going a day without using the internet either at work or at home is almost unimaginable. Have you ever thought what happens to the information that you leave behind when visiting your favourite websites? Every page you visit, every survey you take, every ad you click on builds up a profile which is used by marketing companies and increasingly, political parties to build up a picture about what sort of things you are interested in and how you might be swayed to buy items or even vote in an election.

Here’s a slightly different version of the audio here, with the volume re-normalised — which just means it’s now supposedly at the optimal volume.

I think Mr Callinan got slightly paranoid after he’d read a certain op-ed I wrote earlier this year.

I’m not so sure how well I explained things. This was a live-to-air piece at 0720 AEDT after I’d had just three and a half hours of sleep and a few hours dealing with, um, a very aggressive intestinal problem. So I wasn’t as focused as I’d like to have been.

If I had my time again, I’d have made sure to explain how the advertising embedded in web pages, or the Facebook “Like” buttons, allow those organisations to track you across multiple sites. And I’d have made sure to have a link I could give out for some concise “How to protect your privacy online” guides.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)

02 November 2012

Talking Google’s defamation loss on ABC 702 Sydney

A Melbourne man’s successful defamation suit against Google has been one of the big “technology” news stories this week. I wrote about it for Crikey yesterday, and spoke about it on the radio.

The Crikey piece, â€œGoogle defames us all, but should we sue?â€, is currently behind their paywall, though you can sign up for a 21-day free trial. It will emerge from the paywall in two weeks.

In it I argue that we may need a new legal category for online conversations, something that’s obviously not private but also not as formal as “publication”. I’ll come back to that theme once you can all see the story for free, you cheapskates.

Yesterday afternoon I briefly outlined the case to Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney. And here’s the audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.4MB)

15 September 2012

Talking journalism and iPhone 5 on ABC Media Report

Yes, Apple released a new iPhone 5 this week. I wrote about it for Crikey. And I spoke about it on ABC Radio National’s Media Report yesterday, in the context of using smartphones for journalism.

Will the new iPhone improve citizen journalism? More broadly, can we use modern Android phones to produce quality journalism?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.5MB)

The tools I mentioned were:

CoveritLive for liveblogging.
WordPress for blogging more generally, though of course there are others.
Any number of tools for posting photos and other images, but I mentioned Flickr and Twitpic.
YouTube is the gorilla in the room for posting video, but there’s also services for live video streaming such as Ustream and Livestream. The latter even works as a video switching service in the cloud.

“You’re going to get phone calls after this, Richard, from plenty of people who say ‘No, no, no, use something else. You can get into kind of religious wars about this sort of thing, and it’ll all be out of date by November,” I said. Which is true, but I still might write an article talking about this in more detail some time.

07 September 201207 September 2012

Talking data retention on ABC Local Radio

The current parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s national security laws has become a mildly hot media topic this week, so I ended up doing a backgrounder on ABC Local Radio last night with Dom Knight.

I should probably write more about this some time. And I will. But for now, here’s that 18-minute conversation. Including our digression into talking about that fine TV drama The Wire.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.3MB)

04 September 201204 September 2012

Talking about names on ABC Radio’s “Life Matters”

I had the very great pleasure last week of joining ABC Radio National’s Life Matters for a talkback about names, nicknames and pseudonyms — live via Skype from my hotel room in San Francisco.

“What’s in a name?” We have heard these famous words of Shakespeare’s many times, but have you ever considered just how much of our identities are wrapped up in our names?

It’s often the first thing we’re asked. It’s how we identify ourselves to others. But do you like the name you’ve been given? Are your parents to blame, do you think?

You have the ability to change it — would you? Have you? Have you taken your partner’s surname? Is your name hard to pronounce? Do you constantly correct people on how to say or spell it?

Maybe you have a nickname which has basically become your ‘real’ name? How did you get it? Do you use it to go online to chat or date anonymously? Or on social media?

I smile at the title of the session, because that was also used as the headline for my story for ABC’s The Drum last year.

Here’s the full hour of the program, embedded from the ABC website.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (25.4MB)

[Photo: Live from San Francisco: me at my desk at the Omni San Francisco Hotel connecting to ABC Radio National in Australia via Skype.]

20 August 201227 January 2019

The 9pm Edict #21

The Australian government continues to use the world’s most vulnerable people as political footballs. We discover the ultimate Ayn Rand porn. And Stephen Fry is a patronising racist who should be thrown off television. Not really news, but it’s time people understood.

In this episode of the Edict, you’ll also hear why political strategist Mark Textor pisses me off. And I mention this cartoon by First Dog on the Moon.