We've discussed in the past Kirby Ferguson's excellent project Everything is a Remix, which tries to highlight how creativity is almost always derived from elsewhere. We wrote about the first two videos, which covered copyright issues, starting with music and then movies. His latest may be the best yet, as it focuses on inventions, in large part by retelling the Apple story, concerning how it built off the work at Xerox PARC (which in turn built off work at SRC and other places). We actually just talked about this story a few weeks ago, and this video definitely adds to that conversation: The key point, which critics will undoubtedly skip or gloss over, is that he's not just saying that copying is good. He's saying that copying is one part of the very important process of innovation. Copying is a component, but the important part is then taking that copy and doing more with it. At issue is that some people believe that it's better to do everything from scratch. But that's incredibly wasteful, inefficient and too often, limiting. Being able to build on the works of others, to transform them and combine them with other good ideas, that's where innovation comes from. We've pointed this out many times before. The iPhone was a wonderful innovation, but almost all of its technologies could be found elsewhere. It's just that Apple put them together in a brilliant and user-friendly package. The video shows that the same thing was true of the original Macintosh, which took ideas from elsewhere and put them together in a useful manner. And, as you look back through history you find that it's true of all sorts of revolutionary and transformative advances in progress, such as the Gutenberg printing press or Henry Ford's Model-T mass production setup:
Innovation is almost always about remixing. It's about taking ideas that are already out there, and transforming them and adding to them. And yet, our social and legal policies seem to deny this. They seem to be focused on the myth of "flash of genius," -- of an invention that is brand new and unique. And so we create a system like the patent system, which doesn't recognize the importance and value of building on the ideas of others in order to continue that process of innovation. And that's a shame, because it's holding back progress in dangerous ways. It's certainly not stopping progress, but what we lose from progress not going as fast as it could is tremendous.

The EFF has the unfortunate story of how prosecutors in Vermont, doing an investigation into an identity theft, requested an incredibly broad warrant to seize computer equipment, CDs, mobile phones and other devices in someone's home. The judge realized this might be way too broad, and limited the warrant, "putting reasonable bounds on the search, as well as including basic privacy protections for information and data not connected to the identity theft under investigation." It's hard to see how anyone could argue against such limits... but apparently, the prosecutors feel otherwise. They filed a petition in the Vermont Supreme Court to allow the original, overly broad warrant be allowed instead. I can't fathom the argument for such a fishing expedition. Warrants are supposed to be narrowly executed around the specific crime being investigated. The court limits made sense here, and yet prosecutors seem to be admitting that they want to go fishing for anything else they can find as well.

Forget the traveling salesman problem or p=np, some computer scientists have finally tackled the really big challenge for computers: teaching them how to understand the innuendo and double entendres necessary to make a "that's what she said" joke. Yes, all other computer science pale in comparison, so kudos to Chloe Kiddon and Yuriy Brun for tackling such a difficult challenge:

Automating this process means identifying sentences that contain potential euphemisms and follow a particular structure - a "hard natural language understanding problem", say the researchers. Kiddon and Brun began by analysing two different bodies of text - one containing 1.5 million erotic sentences, and another with 57,000 from standard literature.

They then evaluated nouns, adjectives and verbs with a "sexiness" function to determine whether a sentence is a potential TWSS. Examples of nouns with a high sexiness function are "rod" and "meat", while raunchy adjectives are "hot" and "wet".

Their automated system, known as Double Entendre via Noun Transfer or DEviaNT, rates sentences for their TWSS potential by looking for particular elements such as nouns that can be interpreted in multiple ways. The researchers trained DEviaNT by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-TWSS text from sites such as wikiquote.org.

Apparently, the system is about 70% accurate so far, but they believe they can get it up to 99.5% accuracy before too long.

I'm sorry, Watson, but this may be the biggest computing/artificial intelligence story of the year. And, already, the race is on to come up with the appropriate jokes. My favorite so far was this quote for the researchers on this project: "It was hard and it took forever."

We've been running a series of experimental discussions lately asking people to weigh in -- via an ad unit -- on different aspects of computing in their lives. The latest such ad box is running for a few days either on the front page of the site or below this post, asking the question: how have computers improved the life of your child? I actually think this is a pretty interesting question by itself, let alone the possible answers. I still don't feel particularly old, but when I think back to how different things were when I was a kid, it's really quite shocking how much computers now pervade everyone's life compared to not so many years ago. I had a computer growing up -- an Atari 800 -- which was stashed in the basement. It wasn't connected to the rest of the world. It didn't have a hard drive. But it was a computer. But today, my kid is surrounded by computing devices everywhere he looks, and even though he's young, he's already fascinated by all kinds of computing devices which will, of course, feel completely "normal" to him. Anyway, you can share your thoughts directly in the ad unit by clicking on one of the "poll" options, and then answering the question in the box. Once again, we're shutting off comments on this post to keep them directed in that ad unit.

Once again, this experiment is being sponsored by ASUS Windows Slate, in partnership with Microsoft and SAYMedia.

As you may have noticed, we've been running some experiments lately with more interactive ad units that actually seek out feedback from our users. You can click in the ad to "vote" on the poll question, and from there you're able to input your own views as well. This time, the discussion focuses on what you most use your computer for when you're not working, with the poll answers being Games, Movies, Music or other. Once again, we're going to shut down comments on this post directly, but the ad unit should be running for the next few days both on the front page of Techdirt and beneath this post. If you have some thoughts on the subject, please feel free to take part.

Once again, this is sponsored by ASUS Windows Slate, in partnership with Microsoft and SAYMedia.

We've noted, repeatedly, how troubling it is that customs seems to feel no duty to obey the 4th Amendment at the border, and that the courts have allowed this. It's even worse when it comes to searching digital devices, such as laptops. As we've explained before, what you have access to via your laptop is entirely different than what you pack in a suitcase for entering the country:

1. You mostly store everything on your laptop. So, unlike a suitcase that you're bringing with you, it's the opposite. You might specifically choose what to exclude, but you don't really choose what to include. With a suitcase, you specifically choose what to include.
2. The reason you bring the contents on your laptop over the border is because you're bringing your laptop over the border. If you wanted the content of your laptop to go over the border you'd just send it using the internet. There are no "border guards" on the internet itself, so content flows mostly freely across international boundaries. Thus if anyone wants to get certain content into a country via the internet, they're not doing it by entering that country through border control.

And this becomes even more ridiculous in the era of cloud computing, where a drive may be mounted over the network, and thus never actually cross the border at all -- and yet, Homeland Security seems to think it has the right to search all of this, and the courts have mostly agreed.

And, once again, we have yet another appeals court ruling that says this is fine even if the laptop is taken away from the customs station and brought into the country. We've had similar rulings in the past, and this one involves laptops that were taken away from the border and brought to another location, 170 miles away, where they were searched. The lower court said this evidence could not be used, but the appeals court reinstated the evidence, claiming that tossing out such evidence "would only reward those individuals who, either because of the nature of their contraband or the sophistication of their criminal enterprise, hide their contraband more cleverly or would be inclined to seek entry at more vulnerable points less equipped to discover them."

But that makes no sense. I mean, if you're good at hiding your "contraband" that's already true. Nothing about this ruling changes that. All this ruling does is say that it's okay for border officials from Homeland Security to search through your stuff without reasonable suspicion. It's not about rewarding people who better hide things, it's about the basic requirement of the 4th Amendment that there be probable cause before the government can take your stuff and search it. Only the dissenting judge seemed to recognize this basic issue in the ruling, which is embedded below, noting: "I add my voice to the chorus lamenting the apparent demise of the Fourth Amendment."

The majority ruling claims that it's not setting up an "anything goes" situation at the border, but it's difficult to see how it's placed any limits at all on Homeland Security. It claims that it's fine to search laptops at the border, because Homeland Security and ICE have a compelling reason to keep material out of the US that it doesn't want crossing the border. But, when it comes to digital content, that's just silly. No one is crossing the border with a laptop to "get content into the country." They can do that using the internet just fine. Claiming that searching the contents of a laptop are like searching a suitcase is as if you are technically illiterate.

Of course, since this is a child porn/child abuse claim, it's easy to say that it's a "good thing" that the search caught this guy -- which it did. And I'm happy he was eventually arrested. But I'm still troubled with how the evidence was collected, and anyone who crosses the border with their computers should be equally concerned. Don't let the fact that this case was about child pornography detract from the important issues about your own privacy rights concerning information stored on a laptop.

While IBM's Watson obviously got a ton of attention for winning its big national TV challenge against two Jeopardy stars, apparently, IBM is taking the Jeopardy playing machine on tour, with a key stop being Congress. It got to play against a group of our elected officials... and one of them actually beat Watson. Say hello to Rep. Rush Holt -- who was a bit of a ringer, since he's actually a five-time Jeopardy champion. Holt apparently outscored Watson $8,600 to $6,200, though all the other Congressional Reps who went up against Watson were unable to master the computer. I guess this means that we should make Rep. Holt our new leader when the machines come to try to enslave us.

This post is Sponsored by ASUS Windows Slate, in partnership with Microsoft and SAYMedia -- as is fully explained in the post -- but the content and views are entirely my own.

David Pogue, over at the NY Times, had a fascinating post last week about the debate that goes through his head concerning children using iPads and other tablet/smartphone devices. He worries that his son is too engrossed in using it, but the more he works through the issue, he begins to realize that maybe it's not as big a problem as he originally thought, and it's not necessarily the same thing as plopping a kid in front of a TV -- which many people agree is probably not the best idea:

What makes my feelings on this subject even more complicated is that, in general, my 6-year-old isn't playing mindless video games. He's not allowed to play shoot-'em-ups or violent games at all. Instead, he's encouraged to play creative apps -- and most of the time, he does.

[...] Come on, how can apps like that be bad for a kid? Is it really that much different from playing with paper cutouts? Or blocks? Or a toy drum set?

When he does play games, he favors thinking games like Cut the Rope (a clever physics-based puzzle game) or Rush Hour (strategy puzzles). Heck, even Angry Birds involves some thinking. You have to plan ahead and calculate and use resources wisely.

In the old days, we used to tut-tut about how much TV kids watched -- but parents usually made an exception for educational shows like "Sesame Street" and "Between the Lions." How is this any different? Shouldn't we make exceptions for creative and problem-solving apps?

He goes on to note that we shouldn't just assume that something is "bad" for kids because it's electronic, and that perhaps use in moderation makes plenty of sense. This is something I've been thinking about a lot as well, as a father, in trying to figure out what's appropriate technology-wise for my kid to use.

So, with that, it seemed like a perfect opportunity when SAYMedia, along with Microsoft, approached us about participating in a new "conversational" campaign they're running, getting people discussing what are the best ways for parents to use tablets with kids. As you may see on the website directly, we have a unit between the first and second story, which is a "conversational" unit, that lets you input your own thoughts on the topic, in order to get some wider ideas. Beyond the general interest in the topic, we were interested in experimenting with this type of campaign, because (as we've stated for years), we like to see what happens when you build "marketing" or "ad" campaigns that aren't one-directional, but which really involve communities, and really involve getting their thoughts on things. We hope some of you will also find it worthwhile to participate in this discussion -- and let us know your own thoughts on the role of such technology in the lives of kids. Thanks for participating.

We've noted just how far the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has been stretched lately. The law -- which is supposed to be used against those involved in malicious hacking -- actually breaking into computer systems and such -- keeps being used in ways totally different than intended, such as claiming that just visiting a website you weren't supposed to can now be deemed as "hacking." Michael Scott alerts us to another unintended consequence of the broad interpretation of the CFAA, involving a sex offender who got an extra 28 months on his prison sentence because he used a phone.

Now, as the article notes, if there's anyone out there who deserves a longer prison sentence, it's a sex offender who victimizes minors. But that doesn't mean we should condone stretching a computer hacking law in a ridiculous manner. In this case, because the CFAA allows increased sentencing for someone who used a computer in the commission of the crime, the judge decided that a rather standard mobile phone counts as a "computer" under the law. Even though it was a standard mobile phone, and not a smartphone or feature phone, the judge quoted Steve Wozniak in pointing out that "Everything has a computer in it nowadays."

Of course, that should be a reason why we should worry about this kind of sentencing. The idea that anyone deserves more time in prison solely because they used a mobile phone doesn't make much sense. It continues to make a mockery of the law. If the guy deserves to be in prison longer for the actual despicable crime he committed, then the law should allow such longer sentences. But the courts shouldn't twist the CFAA to accomplish that goal.

If your employer gives you a laptop, which you sometimes use from home, does that employer still have the right to look at what you're doing while at home? Down in Australia a long-term government employee in the Commonwealth Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism was apparently fired after the monitoring software on his laptop notified his bosses that he had done the unthinkable and Googled the word "knockers." The monitoring software apparently takes screenshots of the computer every 30 seconds, which revealed the search. The guy fought back in court, saying that while he was using the laptop provided by the government, it was on his home connection, and he felt the intrusion was a gross violation of his privacy. The judge disagreed, saying that the guy should have known his computer was being monitored and that surfing for porn was a serious issue.