Tech Brief
On Tech Brief today: Broken phones, hypertext monks and brain repair via the power of games.
• America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been criticised almost since the day it passed into law. It was drafted as a way to limit piracy but the version that passed into law criminalised many cases that was argued were not really piracy.
Critics have had some success in rolling back the DMCA's more controversial elements thanks to the three-year ongoing review process.
The changes, , decriminalise some of the things commonly done with digital stuff, such as unlock smartphones, use video clips to educate and mash-up movies. the most "surprising" exception is the one on jailbreaking smartphones, such as Apple's iPhone.
"Apple showed up at the hearings to say, in numerous ways, that the idea was terrible, ridiculous, and illegal. In large part, that was because the limit on jailbreaking was needed to preserve Apple's controlled ecosystem, which the company said was of great value to consumers."
• Those who argue that the net does nothing new have a new ally: medieval monks. they might have been hypertextual before there was any hyper and not much text.
"The function of these images in illuminated manuscripts has no small bearing on the hypertext analogy. These 'miniatures' (so named not because they were small - often they were not - but because they used red ink, or vermillion, the Latin word for which is minimum) did not generally function as illustrations of something in the written text, but in reference to something beyond it. The patron of the volume might be shown receiving the completed book or supervising its writing."
• The French polling institute BVA has taken a look at Digital Natives, those aged 18-24, to see how technology shapes their lives. Almost completely, .
"The way a Digital Native see his (or, once for all 'her') environment is deeply shaped by computer games. 'When he is buying something', says Edouard Le Marechal who engineered the survey, 'finding the best bargain is a process as important as acquiring the good. The Digital Native enjoys using all tools available in his arsenal to outsmart the merchant system and to find the best deal. He doesn't trust the brand. Like in a game, the brand is the enemy to defeat'."
• Games are not just a lifestyle - as - they can be a therapeutic tool to accelerate recovery:
"When Jane McGonigal got a concussion last year, her recovery was taking longer than expected and she got discouraged. Then she decided to make her recovery process into a game called SuperBetter."
In the game, McGonigal dreamed up a secret identity for herself as Jane the Concussion Slayer who was destined to defeat the everyday activities that aggravated her symptoms such as drinking coffee, playing games and exercising. the game was so successful it's about to become a book and guide for anyone else that wants to pursue it.
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