Obama on technology

Thanks to John Daly’s blog reference I had a chance to watch Barak Obama’s talk at Google yesterday. It is interesting to hear what the candidates have to say about their views of technology, and it is particularly interesting to me as someone who aims at studying this.

First, i think the fact that Obama was talking at Google is interesting. Just a few weeks ago Hilary Clinton, together with her husband, visited Microsoft campus. I find it a little bit symbolic how images of the candidates align with the images of technological companies they chose to visit. Obama went to the young, dynamic, and innovative Google. Clinton went to the established and experienced Microsoft. During his talk and the Q&A, Obama made a few direct references to his resemblance with Google founders.

Second, the rhetoric Obama used to talk about technology. I have to admit it was expectedly technocratic. He talked about the information age, about the inevitable connection between technoloy and progress, and did not forgot to talk about threats from outside to the US technological leadership. To his credit, i have to notice that he explicitly committed to net neutrality (and investment in basic research) and at the same time promised “intense” anti-trust to insure competition. The last point is interesting as Google itself is moving into spotlight of anti-trust authorities. The greatest applause was gained however when he talked about reforming the immigration policy, specifically referring to HB1 visas issue.

The last point i want to highlight is Obama’s reference to the digital divide. Interestingly, i don’t think he ever used the term, but it was a topic crossing his entire talk. Addressing the digital divide he framed it similarly to the mainstream discourse. He talked about access to technology as an issue worldwide and broadband connectivity as the main problem in the US. Literacy was briefly mentioned, but the main topic was still access. It is interesting because this discourse has dominated the US political arena for over a decade now. There was a shift from talking about just access to talking about broadband access, but the primary idea remained.

Somewhat unrelated, but still interesting detail was Obama mentioning that over 300,000 people have profiles on his website. This is not related to the point i was making in this post, but just an interesting fact. If you have the time, here is the video on YouTube:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFNt_pV2RNk&rel=1]

And if you have extra time, here is a link to the Q&A session. It didn’t really deal with technology, but with more general topics.

Got them getting us

I believe many of you heard about Google street view. Well, in our last visit to New York City, Veronica and I got a few pictures of them getting pictures of us. Probably we are not the first ones, but still:

 

 

Enjoy!

502 final update

I didn’t have the time to update on that, but after almost 6 days i did get gmail back together with an apology  from Google for the inconvenience.  Actually they replied to all my help requests with the same standard message.  I did have a short email exchange with them after that, but it wasn’t much more informative.  Interestingly, “The Economist” has dedicated its last issue to challenges Google is facing.  Haven’t read it yet, but i wonder if i just experienced one of them…

502 update

Finally! After almost 4 days and 7 help requests i got a reply from Google:

Hello,
Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. We have forwarded the information you provided to the appropriate team for further investigation. We appreciate your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Sincerely,
The Google Team

Although it is kind of a progress, it is still far from providing any solution.

In the meantime i learned that i am not alone in this 502 boat.

Over 60 hours and counting

Yes, it’s been over 60 hours that i started getting this annoying 502 error from Google. The six reports via their help system haven’t produced any response from the sleeping giant. I am not sure i would buy a stock of a company with such consumer service.

And this is annoying. Not simply annoying, but i am sure also harming my work. A lesson should be learned in terms of using third party services, especially those offered for free. At this point, as i am channeling all work related correspondence to the university address, i am really open for suggestions for Google alternatives for a private email account.

Thank you Leonichka for the comment, it definitely helps to clarify my point.

——-

I notice that many people are hitting this entry.  Unfortunately, there is no solution here and I don’t think that Google has one either.  All you can do is wait and bombard Google with requests for help.  If interested, you can read my update messages and see how long it took me to get it resolved (there is a link in the upper right corner and the answer is over 6 days). 

I relate to your pain, but the only advice i can give is be patient.

Gmail is down

It seems like i am facing (hopefully) a promo of my dark googalization prophecy. My gmail account is down for already over 24 hours and i have to admit it is very annoying (especially since i started hearing about emails sent to me that are bouncing back). I contacted Google support already twice about the issue, but am keep on getting an annoying 502 error saying: “We’re sorry, but your Gmail account is currently experiencing errors (...) Please try logging in to your account again in a few minutes.”

This made me thinking(again) about the problematics of putting all the communication eggs in one g-basket. Although this time it is only the email service that is not functioning, but what about a scenario where other services linked to the same account stop working? When all our online communication practices are channeled through a single route, what is the potential damage of glitches in that route? Google are trying to make us keep our documents with them, our calendars with them, our pictures with them, our notes, and more… but here i am experiencing a (hopefully) rather minor technical glitch, and that makes me thinking again about yet another downside of googalization.

This is me being frustrated with gmail.

Google.news

Unfortunately, I have a meeting in a few minutes and don’t really have time to comment on this article, but thought to post it here for you to read and share your thoughts.  The article is about a law suit of an Australian Competion and Consumer Commission against Google’s management of advertisement and search results.

I’ve been thinking recently about ideas of content regulation in the internet, but more in the context of internet censorship attempts in Israel.  On a larger scale I think these two cases are part of the same discussion and i hope to post about it soon.

Another step…

Another step towards Googalization.

I find it difficult to resolve the conflict between the drive to use the great stuff they produce and the objection to them hegemonizing  (if there is such a word) the internet and gaining too much power.

Do no evil, but do lobby

Here is an interesting article about Google lobbying efforts in Washington DC.  They are taking it seriously and in seemingly innovative fashion (see their blog for example, looks like an interesting read).

Reading this article I keep on thinking about the corporate involvement in policy making, sort of a corporate public policy making.  It reminded me again of the last conversation with Tarleton and the importance of making this part of my dissertation.  Indeed, the testimonies of Google executives and the Googalization of congress (see in the article the part about Google tutorials for “congressional aides that will teach them how to use Google’s search engine better and faster”) hint, pretty boldly, on the corporate involvement in regulation processes.  Of course Google is not alone there, and that makes the whole thing even more fascinating.

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